


Zeroic Hero - Beginning

by RubyLuxuria



Category: Original Work, Tokusatsu
Genre: Action/Adventure, Afterlife, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Heroes & Heroines, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Original Character(s), Other, worlds collide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 73,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12777630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyLuxuria/pseuds/RubyLuxuria
Summary: All dead worlds are given a chance of rebooting, but the villains all wanting to reboot the worlds for their own desire. Heroes from those dead worlds now teaming up, claiming for their rights for a living world safe for all.This is a story where all hopes are regained...





	1. O1 - Marzonn Zero, the Golden Knight

# Marzonn Zero, the Golden Knight

_“Aren’t you a lucky boy? In that age of yours, you get to be married to a really cute girl.”_

_“She’s not only cute, but she’s also a rich one. You are truly blessed, aren’t you?”_

_“All the boys will be so jealous of you!”_

_A female approaches a naked young boy, tied up around his wrists, seemingly chained to the wall as she squats before him and grabbing his face close to hers, “Of course, it’s not like you need to meet them after all. After all of those training we gave you, I’m sure the princess won’t event let you out from her bed…”_

_The boy simply stares at her._

_His empty eyes give no word from its owner, as if he has no longer any opinion. It is as if… he has been broken…_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A young female slowly opens up her eyes, followed by a yawn coming out through her lips.

From her point of view, she sees the ceiling brightened up by the sunshine appearing from a window near her.

She pulls her body up, sitting upright just to see the sight of a young man buttoning the clothes of a little girl as he tries combing her long, bluish hair at the same time. She can see how he gives off a smile to her as he doing his duties to the cheerful young soul.

The girl turns to her right, quickly noticing of the woman and runs away from him, climbing the bed as she calls out to her, “Mama, wake up! We’re going to Eiffel Tower!”

She smiles at her, rubbing her head, “Eiffel Tower?”

“You promised!”

The little girl keeps on insists of going to this kind of tower, with the older female finally gives in to her words, “Okay~, we’re going to the Eiffel Tower.”

“Yeaaaaahh!!!”

The little girl screams excitedly as she runs back to the man, “Papa, we’re going to Eiffel Tower!”

“That’s great, Aenori,” her father simply pats her head, smiling at her gently.

The older female just stares at her husband, smiling wide as she speaks up to him, “How are your night?”

Without even looking at her, he tries to mutter and forming words, “F-fine, ma’am…”

“Honey…” she leans forward, pulling herself close to him, “That’s not how you are supposed to call your wife… not when Aenori’s around…”

“I-I-I’m sorry…”

“What?” she moves even closer, now trying to look at him.

Her husband is trying not to even see her, starting to close his eyes as he mutters again, “S-sorry… C-C- Cecilia…”

The woman now smiles wider; quickly jump close to him and hugging him tight. She even pushes her cheek close to his, speaking out loud, “I’m not mad, honey… I just don’t like our daughter telling her friends and those nosy teachers of hers that you are not intimate to me. We are wife and husband after all.”

“Y-yes…”

“Good~.”

The woman now stands up as she walks toward the mirror, now speaking up as she continuously looking at the mirror, “But first mama will have to do a work first, okay?”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The husband and his daughter is simply standing inside an art gallery, with both of them are focusing all of their attention toward one particular picture.

His eyes eventually break away from the picture, now turning to the left of his. His eyes wander, seeing his wife speaking toward someone; a female who is looking scared at her.

Instead of a normal conversation between two females, his wife seems to be speaking of something that scares the poor girl off.

Whatever it is, he knows that it has never been a good thing if she ever speaks to anyone, not when the only people occupying the building is none other than girl, the family and people in black suits.

He didn’t even see the girl’s face, but he already knows that from the day she spoke to his wife, her life is already set to a bad ending.

Cecilia Éclair lives her life out as if the world is hers, and her words are the only thing that should be heard. The simple words for the description are a spoiled brat.

The husband quickly pulls his face away from them, not wanting to see any further.

He knows that there are only two conclusions for how will the girl’s life ends, and none of those two are good.

He now turns toward the young child before him.

Aenoria Éclair, as strange as her name goes, is as strange as her interest for the girl her age. She is 4 years old, but already she found herself engrossed in art appreciation in early years.

Often she was found looking at any painting or pictures for a really long time, not moving but still capable of listening to others when her name is called.

One would think of how strange that she isn’t active and playing with her peers or friends, but if one would learn of her parents’ lifestyle, maybe they would stop judging others.

Of course, days after that they are either found dead or kidnapped by those yakuza around the corners of that room.

Aenoria, or Aenori as how others prefer to call her quickly pulls her head up, noticing her father’s stare. As a response, she gives him a wide smile, wide enough to lose him in thought of how cute she is.

That cuteness is the only think that keeps him alive, thus that smile worth more than his own life.

It’s not like he has a life, not after it was torn seven years prior to this day.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“You want to go back home, boy? Go and meet your parents?”_

_Before this young boy, chained onto the walls, looking weak and rough with torn up dirty clothes, the redheaded female moves her face close to him, muttering right onto his face, grinning wide for him to see, “Why would you bother doing so? You get to be with a young, rich girl and leech off her family’s fortune like you are paid to do so. Everyone wants to be in your position, and yet you wish to throw them away? Boy, you should be grateful with what you have been given of.”_

_She pulls herself up, moving her hand, tracing his right hand, starting from his armpit straight to where the cuff is at, before breaking it open with just a grip of her hand._

_She breaks another one, now pushing him off onto the ground, “Maybe you are not trained enough? Yes, that should be it. You are not trained enough; that is why you are able to bear such desire in your heart.”_

_With a force, she lets her rear falls onto him, letting him groan in pain as the female now shows her grin, “Let this big sister of yours give you an extra class, okay?”_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Who are you thinking of?”

Nearly gasping for air, he is taken aback by her appearance, nearly fall off from where he stands, even startling his daughter as he sees his wife’s face close to where his face was moments ago.

“Ma- C-Cecilia…”

Cecilia smiles at him right after hearing her name being called out as she mutters, “You do not lost in thought about any other women beside me, don’t you?”

“N-n-no! I-I’m not…”

“Good~,” she cheerfully responds to him, “You should only have nothing but me in your mind. What’s the good of having a wife if you can’t keep her as the only person you ever fantasize, right?”

He can simply nod. There’s no way her words can ever be countered. It is absolute, after all.

Cecilia chuckles, moves fast and gives him a peck right on her left cheek.

This act alone shocked him, having his feet move a bit further than her, “R-r-right now?”

Ah, he shouldn’t have done that. Now his wife looks really pissed at him, “Is reproduction the only time a wife can kiss her husband? I can kiss you anytime I want to!”

“Y-yeah… of course…”

The older Éclair somehow looks satisfied, moving on as she turns toward Aenori, placing her hand over her head, rubbing the little girl off as she mutters, “I wouldn’t mind if we did it right here right now, but I wouldn’t want to tire you for your next work.”

Work…

Not this again…

The woman keeps on speaking, not realizing his change of expression into an uncomfortable feeling, “That woman just now won’t be able to pay us back no matter how long of an extra time we gave to her. With that kind of handicap husband, I bet she won’t even able to feed them both, including her newborn, let alone having enough money to pay us back at the end of the month.”

Her face shifts, no longer keeping that pretentious smile of hers, “She should have known that Éclair Family won’t be giving her a free pass the moment she signed the agreement. She should have just borrowed from her friends or just let her husband die. She should have known that even if she try to flee to other countries, we will always track her down no matter what.”

“No mercy…” somehow a word forms before his lips.

She hears that, and she smiles at him, “That’s right, honey. We don’t give them mercy. That’s how we operate.”

She then stretches her arms backward, pushing her hands away from her back, “I’m not as evil as what they called us. If she has another child, a blessed child coming from our love and care, I’m sure she’ll start working harder to get more money, granted she’s not trying to kill herself afterward, like all those other bitches before her.”

Work… love… care…

Truly, she has twisted takes on otherwise harmless words.

The woman is still talking, now looking straight at him as she mutters, “Promise me you won’t look after her after tonight?”

“Wha-“

“Remember that last bitch… Kiriko is her name, right?” she interrupts his reaction, “Can’t believe you fall for that slut, you even secretly cheating with her behind my back. That home-wrecker has the nerve to cancel her marriage just to go and meet you.”

She now steps closer to him, hugging him tight, whispering straight to his ear, “You are lucky she is a policewoman, so we can’t hurt her without causing unnecessary problem, but if I ever found out that you meet her again, I will personally cut her into pieces, letting her sees how her flesh being torn apart with what’s left of her become a playmate for our dogs.”

Wha-

This is… horrifying…

She’s not even whispering it.

She speaks those words out loud, detailing her torture plan for all to hear.

She pushes herself off from him, now muttering, “Honey, I felt something hard below us.”

Both spouses moving their heads downward, seeing their little girl simply stares at her mother. She doesn’t seem wanting to express any form of feelings.

Aenori simply looks at her, not saying anything.

Cecilia… may have scarred her own daughter… is what people would have said, but the girl has been hearing her mother speaking with colorful words like that.

The mother quickly gives her a big smile, “Want to go to the Eiffel Tower?”

As per usual, the child won’t be able to process the nonsense her mother just sprout, “Let’s go, mama, papa!”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Even a leader of criminals can have fun without harming others.

This can be seen with the wife of the Éclair household acting like a child alongside an actual child as the two explore the higher ground of the tower in the middle of Paris.

This is, in fact, one of the rarer moments exhibit by Cecilia where without hurting those around her, acting like a cheerful young child without the supervision of cruel adults, even more childish than her own daughter.

What is even rarer than this moment is when her husband, watching from nearby, chuckles as he keeps on watching the two.

Perhaps this is one of the days where he gets to smile publicly without any worries while outside of the home. Then again, this is one of the times where he gets to go outside of his home.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“That is one great view up there, right Aenori?”

“Yes, mama! It is so tall!”

Near lunch, the three finally reaches at the feet of the tower, with the two females now discussing their experiences above there.

For those two, this moment marks the end of their fun, where most kids will repeat and repeat their experiences for others to hear.

For him, however, it’s just the start of another terrible day in his life.

Every day, he will found himself waking up of his bed, staying either at the living room, the kitchen or the bedroom, and occasionally, being used by his wife for her own version of ‘tender loving care’.

Today is just like all of those other days.

Since they have pretty much spent half of a day outside, it is inevitable to think that he will spend most of his days back at the hotel room.

The only thing that forces him to go straight back home is him waiting her order.

Her words are absolute. Acting by yourself, even if it is aligned with her intention, will only be seen as an act of rebellion against her. None shall outsmart her in any way.

He knows that. Her clansmen knew that. Her parents knew that.

Which is why he obediently awaits her words of confirmation.

She finally turns toward him, speaking up to him, “I have a duty to attend to. Since you have been a very good boy, just go to wherever you want to for the rest of the day. Bring along Aenori with you; she’ll have so much fun.”

This… this is unexpected…

“Don’t worry, my men will be guarding you at all time from afar.”

Of course… there is no way she would let him go out there freely without any eyes onto him.

Cecilia now moves away from there, leaving him and his daughter all alone, moving to the opposite as they found a fountain for them to rest themselves there.

He looks around, noting of few suited figures standing around, clearly looking at him and his daughter.

The father now watches silently, seeing how his daughter plays with the water at the fountain, splashing them near him while laughing at the sight of the water ripples.

“Are you, perhaps, Ashraf Naqiuddin bin Nazmi Haris?”

Wha-

“You are now known as Shraffe Kyu, am I right? Man, those people really do know how to hide identities.”

Who-

His head looks around frantically.

This voice… a woman just spoke to him, but who? Where?

“I am right beside you, you know?”

What is she-

At that one moment, he finally realized that a female in green robe, covering her head with a hood, is sitting close to me.

In the moment of panic, he stands up, moving his feet off, away from her, “D-don’t get close to me…”

The female, who he sees having a green, neck-length hair, flashes a smile at him, “Don’t worry. Nobody sees me right now.”

Nobody sees… that is impossible. How come nobody sees her when she’s sitting there in the open?

His head turns back to where the men are, clearly worried to what could have happened to her. As far as his wife concerns, as long as no business transaction happens between them, if a girl approaches him, she is seducing him. That is how her way of thinking is.

But when he spots them all, none of them are making some sort of gestures of communicating via anything. They just stand there, doing nothing, acting like he is with no one but the little Éclair.

Those people are loyal to their madam; they won’t do anything that will make her angry. They also found enjoyment from seeing others tortured physically and mentally, just like their madam is.

Is this woman… really invisible to them?

He turns back toward her, as she smiles at him.

He then sees his daughter noticing her, staring at her for a moment before hiding behind her father. She clearly can see her.

The woman chuckles for a moment before opening up her lips, “Don’t worry. You are not looking at a ghost here. A ghost is definitely unable to do this.”

With a flick of her fingers, he feels his body losing senses and ability to stand still. He feels nausea wrapping his brain while holding back himself from vomiting.

Suddenly, he sees himself no longer at a fountain. He is now all alone, sitting inside a fast food restaurant.

Wait… how did he get here?

Wh- WHERE IS AENORI!?

“Papa!”

His head immediately moves to where the voice is heard.

Moving toward him is his daughter, followed by the woman in green, who is carrying a tray of foods with her.

She reaches the table, laying out the foods as she speaks up to him, “Sorry I had to bring you to this place. I don’t exactly have enough money to land us in a fancier eatery.”

Aenori quickly climbs onto the chair beside him, grabbing a burger wrapped in paper and puts it before him, “Papa, eat!”

Her action seems to have attracted the attention of the woman as she leans forward and rubs her head gently, “What a good girl you are! You are so cute!”

The girl simply chuckles at her words.

He now looks around the place, and she immediately takes note of him, “Those people are not here. They can’t follow us around if we just happen to be teleported from their line of sight.”

T-tele…port?

Aenori now grabs a burger of her own, as she speaks out loud before she takes a bite, “Itadakimasu!”

“That’s a Japanese way of gratitude for the food. I knew it; you have been staying in Japan this whole time.”

Wha- what is she trying to say?

The woman now stares straight toward him, muttering out as she wonders, “You really don’t recognize me, don’t you? You have been looking at me for a long time and you still didn’t say anything. Either that or years in captivity make you lose your ability to speak.”

She moves her hand toward where her hood is, now lowering down and reveal her true face, even showing her brown eyes toward him, “Do you recognize me know?”

His eyes widen. Her face has finally been registered inside his memory bank, “L-Leliana… Hathaway, correct?”

He remembers everything he can about her.

This woman is a cousin of him, related to him by their great-great-great-great-grandfather. She also stays nearby his home, back when… back when he is still in Malaysia…

“H-… hi…”

He hesitates to even greet her now, even more at the fountain before.

She was his first crush; the first time he experiences a feeling of obsession toward someone else’s persona life. A puppy love is an exact word for that.

If his wife knows about her… she will… she will…

“Shraffe…” she calls his name out, “Can I call you Shraffe? You seem to be going with that name from now on, right? Who has the brightest idea of giving you this weird name? You can tell how much they wish to hide you from everyone. That weird silent ‘e’ at the end of that name…”

Before she even say anything else, he quickly leans forward to her, “Stop it. You should run away and never find me again. My wife is going to hurt you. You won’t be able to live like other women anymore.”

This… is impressive…

Somehow, after so long, he finally able to speak out loud without stuttering. How?

It doesn’t really matter to him. She needs to escape from there. She should never have any meeting with him at all.

But instead Leliana laughs a bit, “Don’t you worry. Cecilia could never hurt me no matter what. She knows that very well.”

What is she talking about? She speaks as if she knows his wife very well.

“My wife is relentless. Everything goes according to her desire. If she wishes to hurt you, she will do so.”

Now, the woman before her loses her smile.

Instead, she responds with, “And you seems fine living as her sex slave forever.”

Wha-

True…

There’s no reason to defy her words… She will only hurt him more if he ever says otherwise.

It hurts… but that’s the only way for him to live.

He now looks down, as she now sighs, “Forgive me, but this is the least evil thing I could do to you. If only you are stronger than this…”

She suddenly takes out something that looks like a toy he saw around town, from that one superhero show he saw on TV, whatever the show is called.

That thing is gold and it shapes like a big arrow’s head, with a clear circle in the middle of it. The circle is also seems to be a cover of a slot.

Leliana pushes that thing toward him, “Will you do me a favor and keep this with you at all times? This will save your life in the future, especially during the time you need this the most.”

“What is-“

“I can’t tell you all the details, but someone else can. For now, she is not around here, but once we meet her, make sure to stay close to her no matter what. For now, just stay with me till the end.”

Staying with a woman who is not his wife? But… that’s…

 “But… my wife will…”

“Can you please stop talking about what your wife can do and start thinking about how to save your life and everyone around you? Are you going to just stay in that hell hole you called home forever, staying in that room of yours, unable to see the light of the day, and the only interaction that you have with other people is you raping all of those women your wife kidnapped per her orders?”

H-how did she-

Leliana stands up, speaking out to him, “In an hour, the world will be no more. I want you to pick how you are going to go with your life after this. Is it going to be a life free from hurting others, or is it going to be a life in the dark, scared of all around you forever?”

She walks out of there, and he can see from inside that she meets someone and starts speaking to her, before doing a sign that looks like an indication of ‘not having much time left’ and pointing something inside with her thumb.

This person quietly enters the eatery, showing herself as a long, black-haired female with braid flowing to the front and wearing cyan cardigan as she holds what could have been seen as a baby on her arms.

This person moves close to him, now looking at him in wonder, “Oh my god, big bro, is that you?”

Big… bro?

He pulls his head up, seeing this woman as he tries to figure out this face who may have been familiar enough to call him that.

“It’s me, Lina. Your sister?”

Sis… sister? Lisanna?

“Papa, are you crying?” Aenori stares at him, looking concern at him.

Wha- tears… flowing…

Impossible… Never in his life to even think to have this chance… of meeting… meeting… mee-

“Lina…” he is now sobbing, unable to properly form a speech, “Li… Lina… you… here….”

“Big bro!” the woman moves closer, trying to get a simple hug but unable to, startled to see Aenori, who nearly getting crushed the second time today.

The woman now mutters, seeing her, “Ah, is this your daughter? You have a daughter?”

This woman, calling herself Lina as a shortened name for Lisanna, is one of people he would have never expected to see again even if he is to reincarnate in a different life. She is his dear younger sister, one person who is absolutely spoilt to him no matter who or what he is.

He notices that she also tears up, wiping her tears off and mumbling at him, “How long… how long have you been separated from us?”

Good… question…

He feels like it has been quite a long time, but he hasn’t been tracking time anymore…

“Ten years! Ten years, ever since you were 13 that you are no longer with us!” she screams out at him.

The baby she is carrying startled by her loud voice and now looking restless and is getting ready to burst out of tears.

But she ignores her, looking like she wants nothing more than to pull out all of which she has been keeping hidden inside her, “Ever since you were gone, nobody could live normally anymore! Mom always crying and dad almost never at home! Your twin sister almost going crazy, blaming herself for everything she did to you. All of our cousins keep on appearing in that home for no reason other than trying to make people feel good, and that just remind our mom about you even more! I couldn’t even sleep in that home, and I just stay in the boarding school for a really long time!”

Finishing off with a sigh, she turns toward the baby, now trying to cheer her up as she mutters with a lower tone of voice, “At least you are safe…”

He stands up, now taking the baby off from her as he is the one that tries to make her sleep, somehow succeeding in doing so, “I’m not safe. I rarely get to go out like this. My daughter didn’t even mingle around since her mom is a leader of a yakuza, and people just scared of her. I don’t even know anybody but my daughter and my wife and… and…”

There’s no way he could finish his words…

There’s no way he could just tell her that he has been living with the daughter of his kidnappers under the same roof this whole time…

His attention quickly turns to look at the baby, seeing Aenori also looking interested at her, “Papa, baby…”

A smile somehow able to appear on his face just by listening to her words and tone of amazement, now turning back at his sister, “This is your girl?”

She quickly shakes her head, “You can tell she’s a girl? But she’s not mine. She’s Rina’s. Her name is Mari.”

Rina… his twin sister?

“This is… hers?”

The woman before him nods, “Yup. She told me to take care of her.”

“Why?”

Lina’s face shows somewhat pained feeling, “She… she took a loan she couldn’t pay back, and now she had to flee somewhere really far. She was here before, and now that yakuza she took a loan with actually found her.”

L-loan? Yakuza?

Y-Y-YAKUZA?

No… No…

The woman continues, “I heard a lot of bad things about this particular gangster organization. I heard that those who made them angry suffer terribly, especially from their boss. I heard all women, students or married women that crossed path with them were captured, raped horribly and let them live their lives forever in fear, unable to ask for anyone’s help. I heard even the police has problem arresting them.”

No… no…

Nonononononononononono…….

“That’s…” he suddenly stands up, pulling Aenori’s hand with him, “You should run…”

“Run? After so long? I finally found you! Leliana told me about you! There’s no way I’m letting you go!” she faces him.

He puts the baby back to her, now muttering, “You shouldn’t be getting close to me.”

“Why?”

“It’s dangerous… too dangerous…”

BOOOMMMM!!!

An explosion just suddenly heard all around them, having them fall off onto the ground.

The top of the building disappears, perhaps due to the explosion, and all inside the restaurant are seen from the outside.

He pushes himself up, helping his daughter as she has her eyes set on the sky, pointing out curiously, “Papa, what’s that?”

What’s what?

At the sky, he sees something he never thought even possible to be seen outside of the television.

He sees a giant circular object, flying down and enveloping some of the sky, having a huge glowing green light at the center of it, and some flying objects moving down out from the light.

He sees the tower tourists love to go so much crumbles with a laser beam from another similar giant flying object.

He sees people running, as the smaller ones start shooting on the rest of them.

“Incredible, isn’t it!?”

He turns toward the voice…

His wife, slowly walking there, is looking overjoyed as she simply prancing with her arms open. Her smile hasn’t been this happy before.

Two men in suit simply following her on the sides, not reacting to anything.

She sees him and now approaches him, “Ah, honey! What do you think?”

“Wha- what is going on?” he asks her.

Cecilia simply mutters, “Invasion! Restructure! Whatever you want to call this lovely day! For so long I have been waiting for this day to come, when my family finally able to reach me where we conquer this stupid, damn planet together!”

What is she talking about? She sounds like a rambling madman right now…

“Big bro…”

The two turn to their sides.

Lina now pulling herself up, holding tight onto the baby girl and pulling herself forward as she mutters, “Big bro, are you okay?”

“You bitch…” a feeling of anger can be felt.

Cecilia approaches her, and without warning, smacks her across the face, having her quickly falls off onto the ground.

The baby is now crying, after fortunately still held by her, but now that she felt the impact, expressing her shock with a scream.

The older Éclair turns toward her men, pointing out to the child, “Grab that bastard of hers and brings her to me.”

The two men in suit quickly move toward her, holding her up and reaching their madam and gives the baby to her.

Cecilia now takes a look at her, looking surprised, “Ah, a girl? Well, I guess another potential plaything for my husband then.”

“Wha-“ Lina pulls herself up, looking shock at her words, “What are you talking about!? Why would you say that about my niece!?”

A smile loses and Éclair now glares straight toward her, “Maybe if you didn’t try to seduce my husband just now, she would grow up to have a better life!”

“Husband?” Lina is shocked, now turning at her brother, “Is she your wife?”

She then moves close to her, grinning wide, “If, you do not wish to see your niece becoming Éclair’s prized prostitute, you could pay with something else…”

“E-Éclair?”

The two men now grinning, running toward, now cuffing both her legs and hands. Lina tries to escape, but the two seem to be stronger than her.

“L-Let me go! What are you trying to do to me!? Get off me!”

“Owh, don’t worry about that,” Cecilia mutters, still glaring at her, “My men couldn’t even relief themselves. All of my men are castrated before joining the household. I can’t bear having pigs walking around the house thinking they can just do funny stuff with me if they have the chance to do so.”

She then points out toward him, “Fortunately, my husband is more than enough to satisfy your day. Aren’t you, after all, trying to seduce him in the first place?”

His sister turns pale. She slowly turns to see her brother, looking as pathetic as he could ever be, “You… you are not going to…”

He slowly moves close to his wife, muttering to her, “Please… let go of them… just this once…”

Cecilia stares at him, scoffing as she is baffled, “You haven’t been objecting to this thing before, and now you’re saying no? Is her calling you ‘big bro’ turning you off that much?”

“She…” he replies, “She’s my sister…”

“Sis-“ Éclair is now shocked, “Your sister?”

He nods.

She now looks downward, trying to comprehend his answer, till she suddenly grins wide, “This is going to be interesting…”

“I-interesting?”

“Finally, something more interesting than just a sex; a brother raping his own sister. Can’t believe I finally get to see that with my own eyes.”

Please… no….

“Do it!” she turns toward him, glaring straight at him, “Pin her down! Rape her! Have fun with her! Do it now! RAPE HER!”

“Please… just…” he still tries to beg to her, “I do whatever you want… but not her… not them…”

“You traitorous bastard!” she smacks him right onto his face, and now he is the one falls onto the ground, “DO IT OR I CRUSH THIS LITTLE BITCH’S FACE!!”

Her free hand now hovers on the baby’s crying head. Her eyes are looking dangerous and she doesn’t seem to even felt bothered with what she just suggested.

No… NO!

He stands up, running toward her and pulls the baby off from her, running back to where Aenori stands, who has been looking at her, scared and nearly cries at the sight of her vicious mother.

“Di- Did you just forcefully took the baby off from me!?” she screams in disbelief, “Just because you don’t want to have sex with your own sister?”

He has never seen Cecilia this angry before.

He is scared with that face. Instinctively, he hugs the baby close to him.

“You… you dare hug another bitch before me!?”

Wha-

She has gone crazy!

She has gone so crazy, enough that she willingly pulling out a gun from her person, aiming at his sister, “If you don’t want to rape her, then she has no use of us.”

Cecilia now turns toward her, “Too bad. The world is dying and you can’t even be with your brother intimately. Owh well…”

NO! NO! NOOOO!!

“NOOO!!!!”

Screaming as much as he can, using all energies of his he has been pending on using, he expresses his unwillingness of parting ways with the only family member he ever sees in ten years.

This, somehow, conjures up golden strings, solid enough that the strings manage to push her and the two men away few feet from there.

Lina, now able to stand up, quickly runs close to him, wondering, “How- how did you do that?”

He can only shake his head. He didn’t even know what happened just now.

Cecilia stands up again, now screaming toward all of them, “What was that!? Did you just push your wife off, you bastard!?”

She aims her gun, now toward all of them, “How about all of you just die then! That would be a great way for a family to die!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Leliana suddenly appears before them, pulling her hand above and forward.

The bullets ricochet upon reaching her, as if there are walls covering her from the attack.

She now turns toward them, specifically toward Lina, “Run. You know where to go. Bring this girl with you.”

She pulls Aenori close to her aunt, with the girl stares at her, confused.

Leliana squats down before her, smiling at her, “Just go with her okay? Papa wants to talk to mama for now.”

Aenori nods, and now her and his sister run off, away from there.

The woman in robe stands up, now looking at him, “Where is it?”

“Where is…?”

“That thing I gave you earlier. Put it on your wrist!”

While he is confused with her instruction, Cecilia is really pissed off as of now, “What’s with bitches trying so hard to seduce my husband today!? Is he a harem protagonist or something!?”

Leliana, ignoring her, helps him putting the object onto his wrist, “Wait for it…”

Suddenly, something wraps up around his wrist. This bracelet gauntlet has successfully embedded itself onto his hand.

Cecilia grits her teeth, getting more and more angry as she sees the two standing close to each other, not knowing what the woman in green robe did and can and will speculate, “Have you done being lovey-dovey with someone else’s husband? I’m in the middle of killing him if you will!”

What Leliana is actually doing is messing with the gauntlet, pressing its surface anywhere she could as she mutters, “Where is it?”

Éclair finally loses her patience, screaming out, “Both of you, take him out!”

Her two men stand back up, moving close and now pulling out a black card each. At the same time, they breaks the cards with the cards now disappear into lights that enter their bodies.

One by one, their body parts shift, having bigger muscles on their limbs with their heads turning bald and silver, wearing some sort of mask on their mouth and white eyes for them.

Leliana notices this, clicking her teeth with her tongue in anger as she keeps on pressing the surface.

CLICK!

“Found it!” she finally screams out and steps away from him.

_EMERGENCY PROTOCOL, ACTIVE! BEGINNING TEMPORAL DOWNLOAD! ESTIMATION TIME: ONE SECOND._

As what the gauntlet has stated, in one second, electricity appears from the bracelet, moving all the way toward his body and goes to his brain.

“AAAARRGHGHGHGHGG!! GRAAAGGGHHGGH!!”

The lightning is as painful as it seems. He can feel his body frying, burning and his brain hurting so much as if his brain is a board for darts to be thrown at, if that is how it felt like.

He feels that he slowly loses sense of his body; that his nerves are no longer usable.

But then he feels refreshed in just another second.

He feels like he can take on those monsters under the command of his wife, and he knows he can.

He is no longer himself, but at the same he is still himself.

Leliana speaks up to him, “Your body is borrowing your future self’s abilities and skills since you are still crappy in term of fighting. It will only last for few minutes, so use it wisely.”

He could not understand whatever she was saying, but he knows he can beat them up, and he knows how to start.

Shraffe moves his hand toward the middle of the gauntlet, up to where the empty slot is at.

_IDENTITY CONFIRMED! ENTERING FULL COMBAT MODE!_

He also knows a word to start the fight with, **“Zero Henshin!”**

Swiping his palm as fast as he could, a small piece of tablet appears inside the slot as it shines brightly.

Before him appears a golden circle, which then cracks and breaks into pieces, with armors flying out and onto his person, attaching themselves onto him, giving him a suit that looks similar to a golden knight, with chest protector like a shield and a helmet with spikes on top of his head and jagged cyan visor covering his eyes.

Somehow, he also has this catchphrase ingrained in his mind.

**“The Golden Knight that defy the World; Marzonn Zero!”**

Marzonn has no meaning in any language, and because it has no meaning that it holds a lot of meaning for his current existence.

This is what he feels at this moment, and now he is pumped up for a fight, at least until his sudden courage runs out.

For now, he is going to beat the crap out of them.

The two monsters now charging forward toward him, and he just charges toward them as well, no hesitation for that.

Not giving them any chance, he jumps in first as he reaches them, punching one of them and another for the other one, pushing them off away from each other.

Shraffe evades one hit from the left, strikes with an uppercut and grabs him, using him as a shield from a kick on another one.

The shield one now falls onto the ground as Shraffe takes this chance to kick the attacker off, focusing his repeating punches onto this fellow, pushing him off into the destroyed eatery.

He then moves his hand onto the gauntlet, now grabbing a hilt that appears out of what could have been seen as a portal, pulling an entirety of a golden-bladed sword out and turns around.

The fallen one earlier has already standing up, wanting to attack him from behind, but getting slashes with the blade repeatedly is the result of that instead.

Shraffe then grabs him again, throwing him and letting him joining his friend in the restaurant.

The knight stands still, moving in a position for a single punch with his left hand. As he does so, golden lights started swirling around the place, moving into his hand, making it glowing brighter and brighter.

“HAAAAAAAAAAA!” he screams, ready for what appears to be a finishing move.

With the swirling light disappears, he sees the two monsters standing up once more, ready to run out of there.

Shraffe runs and jumps high, throwing his fist that hits the front monster, having him and his friend explodes into bits.

He now turns back toward Cecilia, who isn’t fazed by him, not even once.

Instead, she simply speaks to him calmly, “You really are a dangerous being. He did a correct choice of putting you under my thumb.”

What?

Leliana suddenly grabs his hand, calling out to him, “We should go! There is no time left before the world ends and when it did, there is no guarantee the world will let you live!”

Another question for another day it seems.

The armor disappears, and now he looks around in shock.

He also a bit shaken from her grip, but when she runs and pulls him with her, he simply follows like an obedient slave.

His courage runs out already.

The two keeps on running and running, till they sees a huge green circle of light in the middle of the city as the two runs into it, leaving the world crumbles.

Cecilia sighs, now pulling her head up as she sees far on the sky, a spherical blue planet, an Earth-like object getting bigger and bigger.

She smiles as she mutters, “This time… I get to be real once more.”

Seconds later, two Earths crash onto each other, and crash onto another set of Earths.

This keeps going until there is no more Earth to be collided with.

This is how a universe dies.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Now, Shraffe opens up his eyes.

He is lying on somewhere unknown, and the only indication of his current location is a huge mansion not far from there.

“Hello there,” a female voice is heard calling him.

He quickly turns around, seeing a purple-haired female with red ribbon tied on one side of her hair, wearing black vest and black shorts, is standing close to him, slightly leaning at him with a smile on her face.

“You must be new here.”

He nods, pushing himself up, noting of her height similar to him.

The female keeps smiling at him, speaking up to him, “Welcome to the Land for the Dead. You are standing inside Aranzo Village.”

“Land… of the Dead? Am I… dead?” more confusion fills his head, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, “Is this… heaven?”

“Not really,” she shakes her head, “This is the purgatory. Ah, where is my manner? I am Sakura Aranzo, the wife of the village head.”

She tries to offer him her hand, but he is hesitating to accept her offer.

His hand is shaking uncontrollably, but soon enough, he does accept her welcome.

From here is how Shraffe; the Golden Knight; Marzonn Zero, begins his journey.

 

**End chapter.**

**This is an original story about heroes from different worlds teaming up with each other to fight evil. Consider this an Avenger-like story, with build ups and so on…**

**This is not the first chapter, however. This is just an origin chapter, so even if this story is dark, the real story is actually lighter in term of tone.**

**No, Sakura Aranzo is not the heroine. Yes, she will affect his life from now on.**

**Next: Another origin chapter, this time detailing the mysterious Leliana Hathaway and her own personal problem.**


	2. O2 - Saberleaf; Gatekeeper of the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin story of Saberleaf; the Gatekeeper of the Void

# Saberleaf; Gatekeeper of the Void

_“In 15 years, the world will be destroyed.”_

_A huge disc on the sky shoots out laser, with so many smaller flying objects fly down, shooting more lasers out toward the buildings._

“Ah!!”

A small child; green-haired girl, hair tied up in a ponytail fashion, wakes up, now finding herself in a white yukata, sitting with her legs folded on the floor, as she sees herself inside a dark room, only with few candles as the source of light.

“You are sleeping again, aren’t you?”

PAK!

“AAAHH!!” the child screams out in fear, seeing and hearing a rattan cane being hit on the floor before her, all done by a black-haired older female before her.

“Mom… I’m so sorry,” the child quickly bows before her.

But that doesn’t soothe the atmosphere. Instead the person she called ‘mom’ sighs noticeably loud as she speaks up to her, “When I saw you born with that green hair of yours, I really thought that you are going to be a genius like your green-haired predecessors.”

She keeps on speaking, with the child now pulling her head up, staring at her, “Long ago, back in the old days, our first ancestor, the first person establishing the clan Kagija, is the lead seer of the Aranzo Empire back during the first king of the empire itself. She was blessed by our Creators so much that her hair turns green as a sign of such glorious event.”

“But that hair color is not hereditary among us, and all of her successors are all lived with their own hair colors, until 100 years later, another one is born, now already having green hair and has been to possessed the same power as the first see; the ability to see 2 years into the future. That is something us, normal seers could never achieve no matter what, as we can only see 6 months into the future.”

For a child like her, long explanation like that is not something she could handle. It is not surprising that she falls asleep from that.

Yet this turn of event is seen as impossible in her mother’s eyes, “Leliana Hathaway, haven’t you have enough sleep already!?”

PIAK!!!

“AAAAHH!!!” the child screams out in fear, again from seeing the same cane being hit onto the floor.

The older woman sighs, rubbing her temple as she mutters, “How can you be such a failure? You are already 7 years old and you still can even few minutes into the future. Look at your sister.”

The green-haired girl turns to her side, seeing a black-haired girl in the same clothing as her chuckling as she mumbles, “I saw that just now…”

Leliana glares at her, uncomfortable with how she is being watched. That girl is clearly mocking her.

Her mother’s voice is heard, “She is still 6 and she is already able to see few weeks into the future. It is as if she is the one supposed to be born with green hair instead.”

The green-haired girl looks down onto the floor.

It hurts when her mother said something like that. It’s not like she wants to be born with such hair. It’s already hard living with such hair in that age of hers.

At school, the teachers always complaint as if she is a delinquent who dyed her hair even though she’s too young to be seen as one.

The motto ‘black is beauty’ spoken by one of them, at some point almost sounds like a cult.

Her classmates already judged her as a foreigner, even though she was born in that country. Just because her name is already sound like a foreigner by fellow Malaysian, doesn’t mean she should be seen as one.

Just because her parentage is both English and Japanese, doesn’t mean she can’t be Malaysian…

Her hair feels more like a curse to her.

The older woman sighs once more, muttering, “This is all for today. How can I face my relatives if they found out that my green-haired daughter isn’t a genius seer like those before her?”

Is… is being a seer is really that important to her? Is that the only worth for her family?

Leliana slowly walks out of the room, moving out as she steps toward the balcony nearby.

Whenever she feels down, a fresh air can help remedy that… sometimes.

She peeks her head out in the open, now looking through the residential area around her.

From her point of view, she sees so many houses like hers, all closely built to have their walls side by side. This is what double-storied terrace is after all.

Leliana keeps looking around, seeing how a lot of kids are hanging around at the playground, with their parents sitting close by, watching over them while interacting with each other.

She used to be able to play with those kids. Back when she was so little, her hair was seen as just another hair. It is safe to say that the shade of her hair was darker that it wasn’t as noticeable as before.

“Ah! It’s him again!”

That boy…

That boy with a messy black hair.

That is, if she’s not mistaken, is her cousin who lives just around the corner. What was his name again?

Whatever it is, that boy is definitely not having a nice day.

He is so weak, so when the times like this happen, when bad kids in the neighborhood decided to bully him, he just runs away.

Yeah… run away…

She wish she could do just that… she wish she could just up and run from the home just like that…

That is impossible for a child like her. Even she knows that.

“Leliana?”

Her head turns to the side. She sees her mother moving close to her, rubbing her head, “I’m sorry if I hurt you earlier…”

She looks down, “I’m sorry, mom. I’m bad at being a seer…”

“It’s okay,” the elder one mutters, “I’m just felt a bit stressed out. Your grandmother has been asking about you so many times, I can’t even keep my head straight. She really expects so much from you.”

All the more reason why she feels guilty as of now.

“I don’t like my hair… it’s like an anime…”

Her mother chuckles, rubbing her hair even more, “Really? It looks well with you.”

That doesn’t help… not at all…

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_People are crying. All of them are crying._

_Why are they crying? Why is someone being wrapped up in white cloth? Why are they putting them inside a box? Why are they putting him out of the box and inside a hole in the ground? Why is he being buried?_

_“If only we could’ve been with him, maybe he won’t be this way…”_

_“He is all alone in that room of his…_

_Now the scenery changes, with a boy; the neighbor of hers is walking all by himself, wearing his school uniform of white shirt and dark blue trousers, carrying his blue bag on his back, seemingly at the evening, probably returning to his home._

_What he didn’t see is a white van moves past him, before opening the door as two figures jump out of there._

_One of them grabs the boy by his face, closing his mouth as he tries to scream. His limbs flail all over them, but some of them are being kept by the other figure._

_The two manage to bring him into the van, with the van now closes and moves away from there._

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!” Leliana pulls her head up from her bed.

She is sweating heavily, as the atmosphere turns hot all of the sudden even though there is a fan above her.

“Leliana?”

She turns to her side, seeing her mother standing beside her, looking concern at her, “Are you okay? Are you having a nightmare?”

Nightmare? That’s probably it. But it seems too real to be one…

The green-haired girl simply nods once, slowly does so. She is unsure what to say of that.

Her mother asks her again, “Is it scary?”

She nods again.

“Is that why you are crying right now?”

Crying?

The girl moves her hand over her eyes.

Tears…

Why?

Is it because of the dream? That dream seems to be touching her heart that much, but why? Why does she feel so bad about it?

Her mother mutters, “Good thing for you today. We are finally going to go back to the village. It has been so long, isn’t it?”

Village? Kirana Village?

All the worries she has, all gone when she hears the name of the village appears inside her mind. She knows that is the place she mentions of.

It is the hometown of her grandparent from her mother’s side, and while she isn’t staying there anymore, the rest of the nuclear family members are there for the reunion.

It hasn’t been so long since her parents return there thanks to work, but now they will finally able to do so.

Owh, how happy she is now that she can play with a lot more of her cousins. Here she rarely ever goes out except to school, so she has not much friends to play with. At the village, there are no seer trainings so her mother lets her play with all of her cousins.

“We will go there this Friday, okay?”

Leliana nods happily, as she now jumps out of the bed, ready to get prepared to her school.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“You really couldn’t see anything? What is wrong with you!?”

This evening, unfortunately, her mother snaps again.

She not only sleeps halfway through her training, but she just could do anything.

Her mother screams out at her, “That’s it! You are NOT doing anything today! It is clear that I expect too much out of you. From now on, you are going to train to be your sister’s supporter! She will be the lead seer for our family. You go and do whatever you want!”

Her mother seems really angry with her.

She knows why. It’s her hair again…

It’s because of her hair, she expect too much of her, is it not?

“Crying!? Are you crying!? Who’s fault is it? Mine? Is it my fault you could not do what all females in our family can basically do in their sleep!?”

True, Leliana is crying right now.

Her mother isn’t holding back today. She just hits the floor so many times with her cane that the cane breaks into half.

This act scares her enough that she runs out of there.

Her sister, however, is simply laughing at her.

“Why are you laughing at your sister, Elena!? You are no different if you can just see 2 minutes ahead of you! The training after this will be much worse now that you are the lead seer.”

The laughter just stops.

Leliana has no idea what happens next, but she is not around to hear anything else in that room.

She is now back to her favorite spot; the balcony.

Once more, she stares toward the playground, now with her eyes sobbing.

It is good that she isn’t seer stuff anymore, but for kids her age, nothing is scarier than disappointing her parents.

She felt that she has created the biggest sin, and the only remedy that she can think of is her mother appearing beside her, telling her its fine to be a failure.

Leliana just stands there, peeking to the outside world as she keeps on looking at the family where their kids are free to play around.

Why can’t she just have that life? Why is her life so special that she has to be treated like that?

The mind of 7 years old is very simple one, so no complicated answers should be the answer for her.

“G-Give that back!”

The scream… it sounds so close to her home.

She looks around and sees a chair beside her. Someone must have left it there since the balcony has nothing there but empty space.

She pulls the chair close to the railing, as she climbs onto the chair, tries to get a better view to where the voice comes from.

“T-T-That’s my sister’s!”

She hears the voice once more, as she turns to her right, now seeing a group of kids there.

Two boys are standing before another one, as this boy is standing close to a girl on the ground.

She’s crying.

The boy beside her is standing in a fighting stance, and he is being laughed at by the two boys before him.

He screams at them, “Give that back to her! That’s my sister’s toy!”

“A girl does not play a toy car!”

“She does! Give her back!”

The two boys now taunting him, and angered, the boy crashes himself onto one of them, punching him with his fists repeatedly.

“I said, give it back to her!!”

The other boy tries to pull him away, and he did.

Now the lone boy gets beaten up instead.

The two is about to walk from there, with the toy car in their hand, but then the boy stands up, and grabs a rock, throwing it straight to them.

The rock hits one of their legs, and now he is the one who’s crying!

Leliana is no longer crying. She seems focused on watching the whole thing plays out before her.

The lone boy grabs another rock, now screaming out at the two, “Give the toy back or I throw this at you!”

“Fine, t-take your stupid car back!”

The bully throws the toy car back to him, running away from there, albeit one of them is limping.

Now Leliana is smiling at the sight. She sees the boy’s face and quickly recognizes him as the cousin who stays close by.

The boy takes the toy and walks toward the crying girl, who is already stop as she sees him, quickly standing up and holding his hand, “Thank you… big bro…”

The boy chuckles as he grabs her hand, walking away from there.

But then he notices of the green-haired girl’s eyes…

…

Their eyes are staring at each other for that moment.

The boy seems shocked and quickly run away from there.

Leliana just stares at them. She unknowingly loses her smile when he sees her.

Her heart suddenly turns hot.

What… was that?

“Leliana?”

Her mother’s voice is heard, and she could someone crying from inside the house.

But her mind isn’t focused on the voice. She instead keeps thinking about the boy.

If she has someone like that protecting her, she may have feels better…

The rest of the day, she barely hears what her mother has to say about her training.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That Friday, they arrived in front of a mansion.

They are now at Kirana Village, and this mansion is a mansion owned by their family together, taken care of by a caretaker only known as Fathin.

From her home toward here takes averagely half a day, and when you go exactly at the evening, of course you are going to arrive there late at night.

Fathin, who is a black-haired, long-haired girl, looks like a young adult, wearing what they called as ‘baju kurung’ is now helping them with their luggage.

Taking this chance, Leliana asks her something, “Are we the first one here, Fathin?”

The girl quickly shakes her head, “Someone is already here before you. They just arrived here few hours ago.”

 “Ah, Ellie is here!” a girl smaller than her appears before her, pointing toward her.

The boy from before now appears on her side, checking out the family as he sees her, “E-Ellie…”

Leliana just stares at him, confused. What did they just call her?

Fathin sees her, quickly speaks up to her, “Ah, you don’t remember them do you? You were so little when you were here last time. You really love playing with them, remember?”

Remember? She couldn’t remember much…

The young girl speaks out loud, “It’s me, Lina! This is my brother, Ashraf!”

“It’s Shraffe!” the boy seems annoyed.

From his voice, he really wants people to call him that.

“Hi,” Leliana greets them.

Shraffe sees her eyes, but then turns to see her hair, “Your hair…”

Ah…

Leliana is panicking. She quickly tries to hide her long green hair.

He is going to be like everyone, calling her a freak for having strange hair color.

“It’s beautiful…”

Eh?

She turns red, “E-e-eh?”

Fathin sees this, chuckling as she rubs her head, “Ara, what was that reaction?”

Leliana simply stares at him, who notices her eyes and quickly looks away.

She asks him, “You… you like my hair? It’s not… weird?”

Shraffe slowly shakes his head, “N-no… I think it’s cute… on you…”

She turns even redder.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_People are still crying. They are standing before a white marbled spot that they called grave._

_She turns to her side, seeing older woman than her, who is crying like them._

_But she isn’t looking up to her. She is looking at the same level as her._

_The woman turns toward her as she can hear a voice mutters from her direction, “It’s fine, Lina. This is not our fault. Those kidnappers are at fault here.”_

_But the woman could not stop crying, “But… but I can’t… he was inside his room the whole week before killing himself… I could have call him out and ask him to play with me. Maybe he won’t try to do that if I was there.”_

_Leliana looks down for some reason, and then she hears a voice muttering, “Leliana from the past, if you hear this, please tell your mother about this visions you have. You are capable of seeing the future better than anyone and I want you to use that power.”_

_She hears some more, but she could not comprehend whatever she was saying after that._

_What she sees next is herself back to her child, now looking at the crying people, this time from the side as she sees that at one of them has the same hair color as her, who instead have her hair short as the older woman sees her and smiles._

_Suddenly, everything seems being pulled away from her, like a vacuum eating away her surrounding until it stops._

_What she sees before her is what could only be described as lines connecting to each other, and all of those lines are connected with bubbles with images in it._

_There are so many bubbles all around her; some are even outside from what she can see from where she stands._

_One of them suddenly moves toward, closer and closer as she is now inside the bubbles, moving fast like the one at the grave before, but in reverse._

_She now sits before a TV, as she watches news being plays out._

_“Yesterday, a boy named Ashraf Naqiuddin bin Nazmi Haris was kidnapped exactly 1 in the evening, as he returns home from the school all by himself. It is said the boy usually walks home with his little sister, as noted by her parents but her sister was ill that day, forcing him to return all by himself.”_

_Leliana looks around the place, now realizing that she is at the living room inside of her home._

_Her mother is sitting beside her, who looks worried, “Why can’t I see this before? I could have seen this before. Is my power really failing?”_

_She is holding her phone, as Leliana sees the date on the phone._

_13 February 2005._

_That means 12 February is the date of that kidnapping._

_“Leliana? Leliana?”_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Leliana! Leliana!”

She wakes up, now seeing her mother standing before her, looking worried as she hold her tightly, “Are you okay? You were spacing out before!”

“Spacing…out?” she isn’t familiar with that word.

“You look like you are sleeping, but your eyes are open. Is something matter?”

She looks around her. She sees her father, her sister and even her cousins are looking at her.

She is shock, quickly turning toward her, “Mom…”

She looks like she is almost crying, and her mother sees this as she quickly pulls her up, holding her as she speaks to her father, “She may have been tired. I’ll bring her to our room.”

Her mother now, walks into a room, and puts her onto the bed. She then kneels before her, “Did you… did you see something?”

Is it?

It could be…

It looks too weird for a child to dream something like that…

She nods as quickly as she can, as much as she can. She feels the need to tell her of this.

“What is it?”

“I… I saw… I saw Shraffe got kidnapped and then he dies…”

Her mother seems shocked by this, her eyes are now widen, “Wh-when did you see this? When did this happen?”

She tries to remember the date she sees of before…

“12 February… 2005…”

Now her mother stares at her, “Leliana… that was five years from now. Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

She nods again.

“Leliana… even if you are supposed to be green-haired genius like our ancestors, you can only see 2 years into the future. Nobody has ever seen far away before. Are you sure you are not just sleeping with your eyes open?”

What? But- but… but… BUT!

“I’m not!” she screams at her.

Her mother sighs, standing up as she mutters, “You really are tired, Leliana. Just go to sleep now.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Crying… People are crying…

Leliana is 13 years old, and five years before she has seen this moment so many times.

She approaches her cousin, Lina as she sees her crying uncontrollably, “Big bro… big bro… he is…”

She, and everyone else, is now outside the morgue at the hospital.

As she has expected, so many people are there, trying to comfort that family that loses the family member; a fellow 13 years old who hang himself, unable to stand the pressure of living in fear after being kidnapped.

Leliana moves into the morgue, moving as she sees the boy, who has grown up, now lying and on the table, having his eyes close as his body is being wrapped up with white cloth.

A female beside him, his mother, is crying out loud, wanting to hug him as she is being calmed by other beside her.

She then turns to see her mother, who stands beside some other people, all of which look down.

She can hear her mother speaks up to those people, “I’m sorry I couldn’t see this ahead of time. If only my powers aren’t as bad as before…”

“It is fine. We are too reliant on your position as a seer before,” a man responds to her condolence.

“But… if only I could do so… maybe your son is still alive.”

Leliana just had it enough. She could not control her anger that day, “Yeah, maybe Shraffe is still here if you just listen to me, mom!”

All eyes are now at her.

Her mother seems worried, “L-Leliana? Why are you so rude right now?”

“Rude!?” she screams out at her, “I told you five years ago! I told you that he is going to get kidnapped! I told you so many times after that! I told you at 12th of February, in the year of 2005, exactly 1 pm that he is going to get kidnapped! Did you listen to me? No! You dismissed me off because it is oh so impossible for a seer with green hair to see more than 2 years into the future!”

Some eyes are in shock.

The man her mother spoke to now turns to her, “Is this true?”

“I…” her mother is unable to answer him, “I…”

“I, I, what!?” the teen is still influenced by her hormone, “You are so focused on my sister being the lead seer and me being her little helper that none of my words made sense to you! You never listen to me!”

“L-Leliana, I…”

“Enough!” she screams out one last time, “If only you at least keep that date in mind… we can… he won’t…”

Tears appear on her eyes as she closes them, “I won’t lose the only person who told me my hair is beautiful!!!”

Then she falls down, crying out loud, as now some of the other female move close to her, helping her stand as they walk out of there.

Her mother just stares at her, still confused with what she just saw.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“Hey, do you… do you really think my hair is not weird?”_

_“Weird? Why would that hair be weird?”_

_“I don’t know… our teacher always scold me, telling me to dye my hair so many times.”_

_“That’s stupid. It’s in the rule book that says that no students should dye their hair at all.”_

_“But she has been telling me that my hair needs to be black, or else people will start to dye their hair like mine.”_

_“But your hair isn’t dyed. Dyeing your hair is pretty much against the rule and that will make other students dyeing their hair as well. In fact, there is no rule in the book that says people born with non-black hair color will have to dye their hair.”_

_“T-Thank you… Shraffe.”_

_“It’s too much that you have to hide away that lovely hair of yours.”_

_“L-l-l-lovely?”_

Being called beautiful and lovely is nothing special. Every day, a lot of people are being called as such.

But for her, who used to detest her hair so much, having your hair being called ‘beautiful’ just makes her grateful with that hair.

From that sentiment alone, she knows she can rely on him with a lot of thing; that she wants him to keep calling her hair like that…

But now that he has gone…

What’s the use of her power if she can’t even use it to save him?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After the funeral, she hasn’t been speaking to her mother at all.

She chose not to. There’s no need to talk to someone who do not believe in what she can do at all.

At least this is what she would love to believe in.

She didn’t even help her sister at all, and she has been assigned to be her sister’s assistant, but there’s no reason to help her.

“Why won’t you help Elena at all? It’s your job, you know!” her mother once complained to her, “As a seer, there is a lot of task she had to handle all by herself. That is why I asked you to be her supporter, her helper. She can’t do all the work by herself. Looking into the future already put her into fever few times.”

Leliana simply mutters, “Maybe if she can see into up to 5 years into the future.”

“What is wrong with you!? You know that is impossible for her!”

“That doesn’t seem too hard for me, and I am still standing and not getting fever.”

Those dialogues are the one that make them stop talking to each other.

What does it take for them to speak again? Who knows?

Maybe what she is looking for is for her mother to start taking her words more seriously? Maybe she asks for simple apologies?

She couldn’t tell, really. It’s so hard for her to even said so…

As of now, Leliana just stays in that house, acting like she has nothing to do with her family’s business…

She didn’t even know what is the business is in the first place. Maybe if she just becomes more involved with her sister’s training…

No, she made up her mind already. She won’t have anything to do with anything related to being a seer.

Her powers are just there for her to watch, and to see how so many people being hurt exactly how she sees them. There’s no reason to help them if they won’t listen.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yet, there is one vision that bugs her.

_“In 4 years, the world will be destroyed.”_

That vision again.

She has been seeing this ever since before, and this is what she sees when she’s not having any dream at night.

The first time she sees that, it was 15 years. The latest one, when she is 18 years old, is 4 years. The numbers are clearly counting down.

Does that mean aliens from another planet do appear and invade Earth?

That sounds stupid no matter how she sees that. It feels like she is watching a movie of some sort.

Maybe she should try looking into the future again?

That morning, still in her green pajama, she walks out of her room, moving toward where the dark room is.

She has no business in there, and balcony is where she loves to hang out at…

But there is no way people won’t see her standing there, staring someplace else creepily.

She rather not loses her focus in this one, thus why the dark room where she used to train was chosen.

Let’s hope nobody is going to use that room in the morning.

Closing the door tight, Leliana breathes in and out with her eyes close, slowly, as she can feel some surge of energy flies inside her.

Opening up her eyes, she now sees the same connected bubbles like before. She has no idea what they are truly calls, but she dubs them ‘Line of the World’.

Each of those bubbles is a timeline of certain era, the past, the present or the future. She has no idea how far of the future she can see, but somehow from afar, she sees flying car, so she can tell that at her full potential, she can see a lot.

She can also see what could have been mistaken as the time of Adam and Eve, but there’s no way Eve has purple hair with red ribbons, and look like Japanese.

But now, her focus is 4 years into the future. Did she really saw alien invasion?

Tracing the lines from the present, moving forward…. Ah, there it is!

Yes, it is what she sees.

She enters the bubble, and now she sees what she saw before; aliens shooting and killing people all over the world.

But then, somehow, the  land just… breaks up… and the world is destroyed?

Wait, is that all?

Alien invasion destroys the world? That doesn’t sound right.

_“Leliana from the past, if you hear this, please tell your mother about this visions you have. You are capable of seeing the future better than anyone and I want you to use that power.”_

Wait, that voice again…

Why would she hear that again?

She already tried, but she failed. Shraffe… he…

She failed, okay?

_“Leliana from other worlds, if you hear this, if you have Shraffe living beside you, please, stay close to him. No matter what world, he is a fragile one. My Shraffe kill himself after we forced him to repopulate the world since he is the only man alive. He could not take the pressure and now he is no longer around with us. I am a failure… please don’t be like me.”_

What? Other worlds? That voice… that is not the future?

“Ah… a newcomer…”

Leliana quickly turns around, now seeing what she could never expect to see…

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

4 years later, aliens do appear from the sky.

Inside her own home, 23-year old Leliana Hathaway sips into the cup of tea as she stares at the TV, reporting on the appearance of alien invasion, killing all including the reporter himself.

She knows that is not just any alien invasion, but she has no idea what that is.

But today is where she starts her work. This is what she was appointed for.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[4 years ago]

_Before her, Leliana sees a female with green hair in a green robe, staring at her as she sees a smile, “How are you doing, Leliana?”_

_“How… who…”_

_The girl takes off the hood, showing herself even more, “I’m also Leliana, but I am from a different world.”_

_What???_

_“You know, alternate universe? Another world? Something like that?”_

_“I don’t think she understand anything you just said!”_

_The two turns to the side, now seeing another girl with green hair, this time wearing an armor around her as she seems to be carrying a sword behind her._

_The girl screams out toward the girl in robe, “If I recall correctly, none of us know that this place is not exclusively for our timeline.”_

_What?????????_

_Is she another Leliana too???_

_Is there another one?_

_Her and her big mouth._

_Another one appears, this time her hair is a bit longer than theirs, bowing at them all. The different here is that she isn’t wearing anything green._

_What she wears is a garb that seems to be only worn by goddess from any fictional media, and it’s not just green there, but red as well._

_This girl walks toward her, bowing once against at her, “Welcome to the Line of the Universes.”_

_“Line… of Universes? As in… plural?” the Leliana in her pajama asks her._

_The one in robe speaks up, “Let’s cut to the chase. We are all here for a reason, right?”_

_“Indeed we are!” the warrior one screams out, “Why else would we be here?”_

_The one in garb mutters, “Of course. I shall explain. We are here because we are the only Leliana answer to the call. The visions of our worlds being invaded by aliens are all shared by all versions of ourselves throughout the multiverse, but only four of us ever come here, checking the same bubble of timeline.”_

_The robed one wonders, “I was going to ask about that. Is alien really existed?”_

_“Unfortunately, I don’t know, but if this is true, then we will have to prevent them from attacking us.”_

_“How?” the Leliana in pajama finally speaks up, “I can only see the future, but I cannot fight…”_

_“You can’t!?” the warrior one turns toward her, “Have you never fight for the freedom of your world!?”_

_“There’s….no reason for that…”_

_The robed one mutters, “I can relate to that. My world is peaceful too. Up until now, the only bad thing happens to me is that my Shraffe was kidnapped and has been missing for years now. I may have a lead for where he is right now.”_

_The one in pajama turns toward the robed one, looking shock, “Sh-Shraffe is still alive?”_

_The robed one nods, “Yeah. Why? Do you want to meet him?”_

_“N-n-no! Mine is… dead…”_

_“I see… I’m sorry…”_

_The warrior one and the garb one also seems silent._

_The garb one finally speaks up, “A-anyway, I received a gift from a different Leliana. She is a professor who is researching on this place, and it seems she finds out that she can use this place to draw out powers from here, and makes her able to fight. But she gives me these before she’s dead.”_

_She brings up two tablet of some kind, and when she does so, all four of them feel this strange surge of wave around them._

_“There’s only two… but we have four people here…”_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Ah, no time for flashback,” Leliana speaks out suddenly, as she now wearing a jacket of hers as she runs out of her home.

She quickly runs, finally reaching the city as she sees those aliens, the figures of grey masks in blue armor, now already landing on the ground, noticing her and starts walking toward her.

She sees other aliens killing people left and right with some sort of dagger.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“You take them,” the warrior one turns toward the rest of them, “I already know how to fight. I don’t need any boost in power or something.”_

_The one in garb smiles, “I also know how to fight. What about you two?”_

_The robed one moves close to her, “I’ll take it.”_

_She grabs both tablets, throwing one toward the pajama one, “Take it.”_

_“Me? I don’t know how to fight.”_

_“No worries,” the garbed one responds to her, “According to the professor, once you used that power, you will know the basic of martial arts. Of course, from that onward, you will have to grow stronger yourself.”_

_“I… guess…”_

_She then turns toward the rest, now speaking up toward them all, “I’ve already analyzed that vision. When the invasion happens, we will not try to stop them.”_

_“Why?” the warrior asks her._

_“No idea. But it seems we will have to find some sort of portal.”_

_“We are going to run?” the robed one asks her._

_The garbed one nods, “Apparently so. Perhaps we are too weak all by ourselves. Perhaps there is a secret in the portal. What I know is that we can meet each other physically behind that portal. Let’s meet up and discuss whatever we need to save our worlds next.”_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

So, right now, she needs to find where the portal thing is.

Is that it?

Right before her, she sees one floats midair right now.

Whatever it is, she really needs to get there.

But the aliens…

“Might as well use this one,” Leliana mutters she puts her hand up.

The tablet appears inside her palm, as she grabs it, “I’ve been training four years mastering this thing… Let’s hope I can at least not die here.”

**“Zero Henshin!”**

With a tug, she pulls the tablet off, having now visible green strings around them as they are being pulled, yanked off from it.

She then has green threads all around her, also being yanked off as her image is being shattered into pieces. What’s left of her is a green armor with black body suit; a helmet that looks like a fox mask and eagle and fox pattern on her feminine body armor. There are talons on her gauntlets and folded wings on her back.

In this form… what was she called herself again?

**“Gatekeeper of the Void; Saberleaf!”**

The aliens just stare at her, now approaching her even faster than before. They may have deem her a threat.

No problem.

Saberleaf stands in a fighting stance, as she starts running toward them all.

The talons on her hand grows into a size of a boxing glove, as she approaches the closest one to her and slashes them all off from her.

She stops running, quickly turns around, putting her right hand up, letting it getting hit by a dagger.

She then goes for a punch repeatedly onto the attacker, finally taking that thing off from her.

Leliana turns around, striking some more onto other aliens behind her.

The eagle pattern on her chest lights up, as a green flame appears out of her, only to appear as a mechanical eagle that flies around, cutting down some of the one up there, and some down there.

Some of those somehow ended up reuniting with each other.

“Let’s finish them off!” she screams out, now standing before the line, standing in stance as she seems ready to blow a punch.

The eagle flies onto her shoulder, which turns into a wing-like blade that slides toward her gauntlet.

The fox pattern on her chest lights up, as her legs are now having green wind coating them.

“AAAAAAAAGGGHH!!!” she screams out loud, as the wing blade lights up in a green light.

Leliana then runs forward, and with her legs coated with wind, she runs faster than her usual speed, as she reaches the aliens and throws a strong punch that explodes all of them at once.

She then turns around toward the portal, running fast as she jumps into it, disappears from the sight of all.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“You… really do have a living Shraffe…”_

_The warrior and the garbed Leliana already disappear from there, and now only the pajama one and the robed one stay around._

_The pajama one mutters, “I’m jealous… that you get to have him alive…”_

_The robed one stares at her for a moment, before she mutters, “How about I just bring him along with me?”_

_“E-Eh?”_

_“If I bring him along, you can meet him, right?”_

_“B-bub-but I…”_

_“Don’t worry. I don’t really care about him. I’m sure you do have some feeling for your Shraffe instead…”_

_“Wah-waha-I-I…”_

_The robed one simply waves at her, disappears from her sight, leaving her looking red as she looks around, mumbling, “Wha-I- I don’t… I don’t…”_

 

**End chapter O2.**

**All O chapters are Origin chapters, meaning we still don’t have actual chapter one yet.**

**Yes, the robed Leliana isn’t the main heroine. The one from this story is the main heroine here.**

**Too many Leliana? I’ll give the rest nicknames next time.**

**Next: Actual chapter 1. Shraffe and Leliana finally meet up, trying to befriend a stranger version of people they know of. A villain of this story is introduced, and he is up to no good, as a villain always is.**

 

 


	3. 1 - Land of the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The afterlife has a size limit, and when the limit is reached...

# Land of the Dead

_“Welcome to the Land for the Dead. You are standing inside Aranzo Village.”_

Shraffe Kyu just woke up, and already he found himself lost in this strange place he is standing as of now.

He remembers fighting a bunch of enemies with a strength he never has and running into what could have a door to another world.

And now he was told that he is inside a purgatory.

There’re so much things to take in. His brain is not capable enough to process this numbers of information.

Within the living room of the house he woke up at, he simply sits there, thinking.

He thinks about where he is right now. He thinks about whatever he should be doing right now.

He thinks about his daughter… where is she? Is she safe?

But… the world…

He needs more answers… more explanation…

“Here you go.”

He raises his head, looking up and seeing the purple-haired woman who found him, Sakura Aranzo, is handing a cup of brown drink along with a saucer underneath.

She speaks up to him as she sees him taking the dishes off from her hands, “I hope you don’t mind tea. We only have that for now.”

He simply nods, taking a sip off from the cup.

It feels… refreshing…

For some reason, by drinking this tea, he feels a lot of burden just flies off from him.

He feels relaxed.

Slowly, Shraffe pulls his head up, “Y-you… you said you are the village head’s… wife?”

Sakura quickly nods in agreement, “Indeed I am. Even though this place is called ‘a village’, you can even call this place a town if you want to. My husband governs this place under his rule, but as of today he is outside of the town. Apparently the Kreetors have called out all of the rulers of a town and a city to a meeting.”

“Kreetors?”

That word sounds foreign to him. He has never heard of this word before in his life.

Is it a name? Is it a title?

Why is he so drawn to this word?

The purple-haired beauty before him smiles, muttering to him, “You just arrived here, don’t you? Of course you wouldn’t know about them.”

Them? So ‘Kreetors’ is the name of a group?

The woman now goes to sit on the couch before him, sighing a bit before speaking to him once more, “Then, it is my duty to tell you everything you need to know about this place.”

It seems she is starting a long explanation. Maybe he should make himself comfortable for now.

Seeing him making himself such, Sakura opens up her mouth, “First thing first, you should know how our world truly works.”

“How… it works?”

“Yes. One multiverse is equal to millions of universes. One megaverse is equal to millions of multiverses.”

“O…okay?”

She seems satisfied, as she continues, “Each universes has its own expiration date, and when the date arrives, the universe itself will be destroyed, bits by bits, by any means necessary.”

The woman somehow takes a piece of paper from her pocket, as she crumbles it into a small piece of ball, “But all expired goods won’t just disappear just like that, right? The same goes for the dead universes.”

She then starts tearing the paper apart, splitting it into pieces of various sizes and shapes, “Even when the universes are systematically turning into chunks and bits, there are still various pieces too big for disposal.”

Sakura takes some of the larger pieces and separating them into her free hand, “These chunks; landmasses, buildings and even people, are then sent into the Land of the Dead, the multiverse’s version of a trash bin.”

Th-They are in a trash bin?

Seeing his face looking confused, Sakura seems to have fun with him quite a bit, “You are not the first person I told this about, and it still amuses me how much focus all of you have over a single term instead of the bigger picture.”

Wh-wh-what??

“This place is… essentially a place where any chunks from any dead universes can rest, waiting to be filled. For millions of years we have been staying here, incapable of dying naturally, waiting for that one day when this place finally reaches its limit of receiving more ‘trash’, and are working for recycling these chunks into a new universe.”

Shraffe is, not surprisingly, still confused, “New… universes… were created from the old ones?”

Sakura shakes her head, “Not exactly, but this is one of the ways to do so. There are still a lot of things I don’t know about this place and this world.”

A question appears in his head, or rather, reappears, “Who is Kreetors, then?”

She keeps her smile on, “Kreetors are a group of people, who, in a way, has transcended beyond humanity. They are not exactly gods as they do not govern over anything. But what exactly happens is that they are the one reshaping the new universes.”

“And… they are still not gods?”

“I understand your confusion, but it is simple to say that the new, rebooted universe will be created based on the Kreetor’s ideal world. The rest will play out automatically without any more influence from them.”

“I don’t get it…”

He really doesn’t. Kreetors create the worlds but not influence them? That makes no sense whatsoever.”

Sakura seems to shifting the way she sits a bit as she continues, “Consider this. Have you ever heard of a pen and paper tabletop game?”

Shraffe slowly nods. He do recalls of his wife playing the game with some of her thugs, culminating into broken noses and blacken eyes for them all except her whenever her ‘sore loser’ trait kicked in.

He also knows that in that particular game, losing is rarely a thing, and for that trait of her to suddenly appeared, she may have played badly, which is also a rare occurrence in a game that favors the players.

Suffice to say, he knows how that genre of a game works.

The red ribbon-haired woman speaks up, seeing his answer, “Then you know very well how the game works. The creators, who may or may not be the Game Master of a game, decide a setting; a story in which the game takes place, the rules and the limits of the games and the players can have. Both the Game Masters and the players may then proceed to their own accord, deciding how the game will end by their own.”

She leans forward, “Essentially, that is how the universes are created. A Kreetor creates the world, and everyone else decides how it’s ends.”

A Kreetor? Then, Kreetors is not the name of a group, but the name of a category?

Shraffe now wonders, “Then… when will a new universe be created?”

The woman now leans back to her chair, “Perhaps sooner than you think. If a Kreetor starts calling out to the representatives of those who live here, that means they are preparing for a reboot. That should be the case.”

“H-How did you know that?”

Her smile… it’s just disappears…

“This is my second time in this place.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kyu Aranzo didn’t like the Hall of Invitation. He feels stuffy in this place, surrounded by those who he considers as newbies who may or may not understand the meaning of this meeting.

Few days ago, the black-haired man in white suit was called out by one of the Kreetors in the form of a letter, suddenly appearing before him when he was rested in his own room.

Now, he found himself sitting in this hall, sitting at a circular table, along with four other people (plus some who stand around as bodyguards) who wear gaudier than he is, appearing like a bunch of cosplayers instead of trying to look like a royalty; something he knows they wanted to appear like one.

He knows that some of them came from a world with a lot different setting than he is, so wearing an absurdly strange costume may have been common for them, but that’s only one like two of them. The other two pretty much gives no reason to wear something like that.

“Where the hell is the Kreetor?” the man sitting across him; a figure masking his face in red mask, while wearing something straight out of fantasy animation movie, also in red.

This figure before him is only known as the Red King, governing the kingdom of Crimson Luxuria. Even though he is a king for his part of the land, he and those from his world only arrived here not too long ago; only hundred years ago, compared to the rest of them in this place, where the oldest one actually comes from thousand millions of years prior to today.

Even then, his impact is seen a lot more, already waging war and conquering every land the moment he appears here, as if he has been expecting this to happen.

Perhaps it is due to his inability to be patient as he seems fidgeting with his fingers before being calmed down by a female, also in red mask, but wearing sleeker, assassin-like red and purple clothing, even having a hood covering a bit of her head.

This female taps onto his shoulder, as he holds onto her hands, seemingly breathing in and out a lot better than before.

“Have you calm down yet, amateur?” another ruler, the one in green and black military garment, sitting beside the king with his black hair combed backward, and having a rimless glasses on his face, snickers, seeing the action of the Red King.

This man over here is General James Lance, the leader of the militaristic organization, double as a country called Titanius. He is, just by hearing his name, is as stern and as strict as he can get, with no short of hatred for amateurish actions in anything, especially when ruling one’s own land.

The Red King doesn’t seems to be taking that very well, as he now stands up in anger, “What did you just called me, old man!?”

As he screams out those words toward the older one, the man behind him, wearing the same military attire approaches him, pulling out a black-bladed katana off from the side of his waist, now aiming straight toward the young king’s head.

The female behind the king now steps forward, somehow generating a red and purple katana of her own as she now deflects the blade before them.

“You two, please stop it,” a man in sky blue shirt underneath black blazer jacket stands up, motioning toward the two opposing factions, “We are here not to fight against each other. This is one of those days where our truce should be effective.”

This man, Nazmi Haris, is the president of the United Residency of Layaria, the only country with the type of ruling close enough to how Kyu’s world works. He has a suspicion that this man’s world of origin may have been his world’s alternate universe, but he has no proof of such thought.

With the two blades from the two guardians of the two rulers are being moved away from each other, the Red King can be heard snickering out loud, “Like I care about this stupid truce we have. If anything, I would rather this agreement to be called off. Then I have no reason to hold back against that stupid face’s kingdom!”

His finger now points toward the last person unidentified in the room, sitting between Nazmi Haris and Kyu himself, a bald man in black, grey and silver coat, with the only bodyguard among the rulers living in the Land of the Dead being a humanoid creature of lion-like appearance, but with bulky body and somewhat human-like fingers, who roars when being pointed at.

This is the only country among them with tons of secrecy, not knowing even the kind of government this person has. The bald person called himself Doctor Zed, and that’s the only thing they know of him.

Zed now stands up, chuckling as he wonders, “You want to attack _my_ country? The only country that supports the peaceful life of both humans and what you clowns called as monsters? What kind of grudge do you have against us if it’s not for, perhaps, racism motive?”

The Red King seems really furious from the bald man’s calm but sinister demeanor, “You know why I hate your goddamn country so much! You dare taking in that shithead as your citizens!? You are housing a war criminal there!”

“Perhaps, maybe in your world. But he has done no such thing in my country. There is no reason for him to be indicted with such title if he do not impose any threat.”

The general now turns toward the doctor, hugging himself with his arms, “I will have to agree with this youngster over here. It seems your country, while being an isolationist; do love to give protection to war criminals from variety of worlds.”

The doctor bows toward them all, “I simply believe in second chances, unlike any of you who are quick to judge those who wronged you in the past. How about we let bygones be bygones at this moment?”

The president sighs, turning toward the only person who has not spoken even a word, “What about you? You haven’t spoken even a word ever since you’ve arrived here.”

Kyu, the only person without any bodyguard to guard him, pushes and leans his back onto the chair he is on as he mutters, “As a head villager of a rather small village, I would like to think that my words serve no right for any of you to listen. I don’t rule the whole country, nor did any of my villagers have anything to do with these wars you guys have been starting ever since you arrived here millions years ago. Therefore, a neutralist like me should stay as one.”

“Yet you are the oldest among us all.”

“It’s not like my words have any value for any of you,” Kyu concludes.

At the same time he concludes his words, in the middle of the table appears to be a figure of mysterious form, masking himself with the combination of dark lighting and huge robe of dark blue and gold.

It is clear to everyone that this is a hologram projected from somewhere else. At this point it is a common knowledge that no Kreetor shall appear before the mortals in the Land of the Dead, even if they have survived from the destruction of their own home worlds, thus having the label ‘mortals’ on them irrelevant.

At least that’s what Kyu Aranzo felt about those who live in this world today. Others may have a different take on this matter.

A voice can be heard coming from the figure; a voice that can be described as raspy and rough, clearly appearing as another way of masking their true identity from everyone in this room.

Kreetors are indeed shy beings…

“I would like to say thank you first and foremost for appearing in the Hall of Invitation, as per request from us, the Kreetors of this megaverse. Though, it seems I can only see five rulers of the Lands of the Dead. I believed we’ve sent the invitations toward more than five.”

The Red King scoffs and smugly counters the last words of the Kreetor, “Why would head villages, mayors and so on appear before the _great_ Kreetor themselves when all of their lands are being ruled by us, the kings of this world? They shouldn’t think of standing even close to people like us, who spent our days and nights annexing any lands that are in need of true rulers.”

The president mutters with a calmer voice than the young king is, “I would not agree with his words of denouncing those around him, but I do agree that the chieftains and the governors do not need to appear before you when they have us to tell any news from you.”

The Kreetor seems a bit shocked by this, “I-I see… Indeed this is very strange sight for me to see how small the number is every time this moment happens. Then again, this is the first time in the history of Land of the Dead that anybody would go so far as to conquer the whole place. Before all of you, people tend to accept this place as their paradise after finding themselves to be dead.”

The general suddenly coughs out loud as he speaks up to the image, “Could you please speed up this meeting? I have other things to attend to. Even if I am already dead, that doesn’t mean any works such as governing a country should be ignored just like that.”

Once again, the Kreetor seems startled by this.

Clearly they are not lying when they said that this is the first time people actually do the conquering in an afterlife.

The image now coughs a bit, preparing themselves as they now opens up their unseen mouth, “As you should have known this before, we Kreetors are the one that build the newborn universes and gives them a setting, and those who are born in those universes carry out their tasks of shaping the worlds according to their own desire.”

They continues, “You should also know by now that Land of the Dead is a recycling bin for us to combine all of those living in here and turning it into a universe of its own after this place have reaches its maximum capacity.”

“Yes,” the doctor mutters, “We know of that already. You’ve informed us two years ago. You’ve told us that there are at least ten more worlds needed till this place is filled up and one world takes in about ten years to be dead and appear here.”

The Kreetor nods, “True. But, unfortunately, as of today, this place has been filled up and now the world is about to be rebooted.”

Except for Kyu himself, everyone pull their bodies up, spring upward in shock with the Red King is the first to voice his opinion, “What the fuck are you talking about, you shitty god!? You clearly told us that two years ago and now you said the place suddenly filled up!? It isn’t even ten years yet and ten worlds already popping up in here!?”

The image now pulling their hand up, forcing them all to stop before any more unnecessary opinions can be heard as they respond with, “How those worlds die are beyond our control. Those worlds may have been destroyed at the same time, thus making the gap between their appearances here are shortened.”

“Still, the process of rebooting this world into a new world is still necessary for the other dead worlds to show up in here. This is why I am calling all of you here, to prepare yourself for what appear next.”

The doctor seems grinning a bit, for a moment there before quickly hiding it from the views of all, as he now asking, “If you could, how about you tell us how the reboot happens? Is it in instant, or is there a process for that to happen.”

The Kreetor once again nods, “I could, and I will. It is no secret that the process of rebooting involves a Kreetor to shape the world according to their own choices of what the world is going to be. But, the difference between a reboot and a newly made universe is on who the Kreetors responsible are.”

The figure stops for a bit moment, taking a deep breath, and in this few moments, the four finding themselves standing closer and closer to the image, anticipating of what the figure is about to say next.

“Among all of the people living in this land right now, one of you will be selected as the one responsible in shaping this new world. Yes, one of you, citizens of the current Land of the Dead, will be selected to become one of us; a Kreetor that will select how this new and improved world appears before them.”

Every single pairs of eyes in that room are now widening, except for the village head.

Kyu remembers of this announcement he heard of before.

There are a lot more people back then, but their reactions are all the same.

When this announcement is heard, all of them turn greedy, and that is when humanity abandoning the concept of common sense for the sake of gaining the powers they never knew the burden of.

This smaller group of people won’t be any difference, perhaps even worse.

The Kreetor still announces, “The criteria of our selection won’t be known to public, and so is the time limit of reaching that criteria, and when the whole world starts rising to the sky, that is when the result shall be known. Till that day happens, feel free to try and win our hearts.”

The image disappears, leaving each ruler with different reactions, but all culminating to their own greedy desire of becoming a divine being.

Before anything bad happens, Kyu stands up, moving out of that place as he knows that all of those people staying in the room will initiate a small war between them.

It happened before, and it will surely happen again today.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Haaa…. Haaa….”

After a very long, confusing through the green circular portal, Leliana Hathaway has finally reaches the land as she steps slowly.

As slowly as her feet tries to recognize the flat land before her, the green-haired girl pushes herself up as she tries to grasp her current whereabouts.

As she raises her head up high, she sees herself standing near a mansion, and near the mansion is a huge settlement, whereas she sees people walking around, doing their business as they sees fit.

“I…I’ve arrived?” she questions herself.

The woman turns herself around once more, now fixating herself before the mansion for the second time.

This building feels familiar for her, but she could not remember where she has seen this place before.

“Kirana…”

“Welcome, visitor,” a voice of a female breaks her focus, putting her into a sudden shock.

A female of orange-haired with a small ponytail sticking out of her head is seen standing close to her, calling out to her, “Are you, perhaps, appearing from that green portal?”

Still in the same condition, she could simply nods without any words for this person she first meets.

The orange-haired female suddenly grabs her hand, as she seems eager to bring her somewhere else, “You should follow me. There’s someone you should meet here.”

Off into the huge mansion they go into, stepping into the living room as the female now greets before a purple-haired female.

“Sakura-sama, there’s another visitor from the green portals.”

Leliana moves around her eyes, taking a look at this room inside this home.

The furniture, the wall, the directions…all of this feels really familiar to her.

But then her eyes move and stare before another set of eyes.

She sees a messy, black-haired man, sitting there, holding a cup of drink as he also seems to have notice her eyes.

“L-Leliana?”

Tears.

Tears now forming around her orbs, flowing out uncontrollably.

It has been so long since she cries for this particular person, and now she is crying for the same person once more.

Not in control of her body, she runs, moves fast, close to him and goes to wrap her arms around his body.

She can feel how uncomfortable he feels, as he turns stiff the moment she has her hands on him, not moving even a bit, but it doesn’t matter to her.

What matter is that she gets to do this with the person she has been wanted to do with before.

Of course, realization hits her, and now she quickly pushes herself off from him, “I-I’m sorry…”

The man before her seems really shock as well, “Y-yeah… n-no… I… You…”

He doesn’t seem to be able to form a word, and somehow she notices how shaky his hands are.

Did she cause it to happen? Why?

Still, Leliana knows why she is at fault here.

This person before her is not the person she knows before. He may have been looking similar, but the person she knows of dies long ago.

This is just alternate universes at play…

The purple-haired female now stands up, gaining both of their attentions with words coming out from her lips, “My, my, I hope I did not interfere with a reunion of some sort?”

Both of them quickly shake their heads, and in unison speaking up the same words, “No. not at all.”

The woman now offers her hand to be shaken, revealing her identity to the green-haired woman, “I am Sakura Aranzo, and welcome to the L-“

“Land of the Dead?” she quickly springs a question.

The purple-haired woman seems surprised by her action, “You know this place?”

Leliana tries to form words and try to make sense for her, “I- I know of this…”

But her eyes quickly widen.

For some reason, she has forgotten this, but she is here for a reason.

She has a mission here, and she should not waste any more time. Her other selves are waiting for them.

“I need to go to the Capital,” she speaks out loud, “Do you know the direction of the Capital?”

She has no idea what the Capital is, and where it is, but during her training within the Line of the Universes, mastering her abilities, some of the different versions of her told her that they should meet up in the Capital.

The woman before her now loses her smile, instead looking stern as she wonders, “Are you sure about that? You just arrived her after all.”

“There’s no time! There’s something I need to do while I’m here.”

The man she hugged before also stands up, speaking up to the purple-haired female, “I also need to go. I-I have a daughter.”

D-d-d-daughter???

He continues with his words, not realizing a green-haired maiden’s shocked, crimson face, “I want to find my daughter. I want to know if she is safe or not…”

Sakura motions her fingers toward the window, with the true direction she is pointing at is clearly outside of the house, “The road to the Capital will be really dangerous. Even in the purgatory, there are still bandits and wild animals roaming around the place. Can any of you fight?”

The male shakes his head, “I-I never fight… I never learn how to fight…”

Leliana joins him as well, “I only learn how to fight recently, and I am still learning the basic.”

She sighs, as she motions the two by pushing the backs together, “Then, I shall escort you two toward the capital.”

“A-are you sure?” he seems really shocked by her words, “But… aren’t you waiting for your husband’s return?”

“My husband is in the Capital right now. We’re just going to meet anyway. Besides…”

She then pauses for a moment, now pulling out a card from her waist as she lets it go before their eyes.

The card does not falls onto the ground, but instead spinning anti-clockwise from Leliana’s perspective, even brightened up with some light coming out from it.

Sakura then moves both of her hands quickly toward the card, and as soon as her fingers reaching it, they can hear a noise akin to a glass being smashed.

The purple-haired female is now holding a pair of daggers, with a long chain connected to the end of the hilts of the blades. The chain is so long that it falls onto the floor, like a snake lay down on the ground.

“It has been so long since I’m involved in a fight, and I can tell that my service is needed any time soon.”

 

**Chapter ends.**

**Lots of info dump here.**

**Next: Another origin chapter, this time introducing the second heroine for the MC.**

**Wait, second heroine? Did I tell you guys that the MC is a harem protagonist?**


	4. O3 - Lightbringer Schwarz; the Unholy White Elemental Officer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin story of Sarah Syarifah, the Lightbringer Schwarz

# Lightbringer Schwarz; the Unholy White Elemental Officer

Urgghh…

Sarah Syarifah, the blonde-haired girl, with her hair styled with a flower-like bun behind her head, slowly opens up her eyes, now pushing herself up, trying so hard to shrug off the pain coming out from her whole.

In that white and green skintight combat uniform she is wearing, Sarah continues to struggle, pushing herself up and up till she stands on her two feet.

Nope, that’s what her body responds to her.

She immediately falls onto the ground of snow, once more finding her face close to the earth, with what’s left of her energy is used on her beating heart and her struggling breathing.

With one side of her face kisses the ground, her eyes are still capable to move even for a bit, and with that condition she is able to grasp whatever she is looking at right now.

Bodies.

From her view alone, she sees bodies, all across the cold land, all wearing similar costume as hers.

The snows near their bodies are all red, unlike the white snow near her per-

Ah, she is wrong about that.

Her eyes take a glance around herself, and she sees that even she has the color red on her snows.

Is it truly coming from her? She is too distracted to find that out.

Within the sky away from her, she sees what can be described as a green light with bits of something flowing out of there.

For some unknown reason, her life flashes through her eyes.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the secondary school of Seri Gamat, at this moment all the white and blue clothing students are experiencing the time of recess.

The black-haired girl named Sarah Syarifah is now hanging out with her friends of males and female at the canteen, with some of them have foods near them, but none of them seem to be eating, as at this moment all they want to do is speaking to each other, discussing whatever it is a bunch of 13 years old kids discuss about.

What the content of their discussion is of no importance.

What important is what they do to a boy of similar aged, but with rimless glasses on his face, who happens to be walking past their tables, holding onto a plate of food with him.

One of the male students of the group decides it is funny to play a practical joke, putting his leg forward, ensuring the kid to be tripping.

Yet the kid, who has been having his eyes toward the ground this whole time, noticed the leg and pulls his leg up past him.

Failing to get the intended result, the boy decides to pull his leg up, pushing forward, hitting the kid’s backside, pushing him off onto the floor.

Now the boy lies on the ground, with his food all scattered all over the floor.

The group laughs out at him, seeing him standing up, sighing as he throws the plate away, moving off away from there with a disappointed look on his face.

“Man, that gets me every time!” the bully laughs out loud.

Among all of them, only two of them did not express similar expression, instead they show their disappointment.

One of them is clearly showing her feelings to the public, screaming out at the perpetrator, “Roy, would you please stop hitting him already!? You have been hurting him since primary school!”

Instead of feeling bad, one of them teases her, “Ooooh, Athena is defending him! I am so jealous!”

The girl is clearly angered by this, turning toward one of the girls, “Rina, what is up with you!? That’s your twin brother! Why are you laughing at your own brother!?”

The target of the questions; a boyish-haired girl scoffs, “I laughed because it is funny. It’s funny to think that sorry excuse of a brother born five minutes after me.”

Sarah did not join their laughter. She isn’t the kind of person that laughs at someone else’s misery. She knows better than to be that way toward anybody.

But she also isn’t the kind that expresses that type of feelings like Athena does, so all she does is staying silent while her friends do what they do best; reenacting a young kid’s accident.

This time, however, she wishes to know why these people laugh at him like so.

She has been seeing her friends throwing stuff, pushing off the same male student over and over almost each day, and laugh when that happens.

It’s a bully, and she wishes to know why would they do what is clearly a horrible thing to do.

Sarah opens up her mouth, “Guys, I don’t get it. Why are you guys acting like that to him? You have been bullying him for years now.”

One of them, a black-haired boy with a top haircut quickly responds to him, “It is simply because I hate him. Can’t that be a reason? I just hate his stupid, nerd face, okay!?”

Another one expresses his opinion, adding up to the previous statement, “He’s just a nerd and a geek, okay? Even in his age, he is still watching cartoon, owh, sorry, _anime_ ,” he speaks the last word in the tone of mockery.

The guy continues, “Just to say, that kid does not deserve to be treated like one of us. He is a pain to look at.”

“So, you are hating him because he is different!?” Athena seems to be really pissed at them.

Yet, the kids continue to laugh, as Sarah just stares at him, moving off and staying somewhere, all by himself.

Sarah feels uncomfortable.

She stares at the kid, who seems to have no one sitting around him, and now she looks down toward the table before her.

She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like her friends treating the boy like that, but they are her friends. She couldn’t just scream out at them and expect them to change.

Athena, among the group, isn’t exactly likeable by most either. Whenever they wish to go out together, most of the time they didn’t even bother calling her for some occasions. They left her out because for them, she is just really noisy.

The only reason they have her around is because she is the smart one, and people do tend to care enough to hang around the smart ones. She is also kind enough to lend her books to them, a.k.a. copying her answers for any of the homework they didn’t do, which is all of them.

Sarah doesn’t want that to happen to her. She doesn’t want to be an oddball like Athena or the kid, who are being picked upon for being different.

In reality, nobody likes someone different.

She doesn’t want to be ignored or worse, bullied for being different.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

That day, Sarah walks home along with her little sister who looks like her, but shorter; Aida Faridah, like she always does.

Her little sister goes to a primary school right next to her school, so every day she could just go toward the next school and takes her home without much issue.

There’s nothing much to see along the road, other than a really strange white van she has never seen before around the neighborhood, and a foreigner with a red hair asking her for direction, but that is all there is to it.

But when she walks into her home, on the other hand…

As she enters the white-painted double story house, her eyes are quickly greeted toward a middle-aged man in blue shirt, reading a newspaper as he is sitting on a couch, facing toward where the front door is at.

“Father, you are home?” she wonders, questioning him, “I thought you have a work today?”

The man quickly notices of them both, as he now folds his papers few times as he mutters, “Ah, Sarah, Aida, nice to see you two finally here. I asked for a holiday today since there’s something I need to show you two.”

“Wh-what is it?” Aida seems really curious, “Is it a really important thing?”

The old man nods, “It is. I wanted to do this during weekend ever since Sarah just entered her secondary school, but your sister always hang out with her friends in those days that it is almost impossible to ask her to follow me.”

Sarah seems taken aback by his words, “Where are you bringing me?”

A middle-aged woman enters the scene, wearing flower-pattern clothing of baju kurung, which is a traditional Malay costume; calling out to the man, “Dear, how about just tell her the truth? If you didn’t tell that, she’s going to be really pissed off.”

“Yeah, I should do that,” the man whispers to himself as he leans forward, “Sarah, how about you take a seat first?”

The girl obeys to his words, moving to the closest couch she can get to from the door, which is just opposite his seat.

His sister does the same, looking really confused as to what their old man is about to say to them.

“Sarah,” the only man in the house is now speaking, “You should know that this… is a very important thing to our family. It’s important to me, to your mom, and most importantly, to you and your future.”

Questions over questions are filling up the inside of her brain. Sarah stares at her old man, wondering of whatever they are trying to say after this.

“Back… back when you are a child… your mom and I… we have an agreement, a promise with a friend of ours. This promise, if you don’t want to go through, it’s fine with us. We are just… we are foolish to decide how your life goes, now that we think about it…”

“Father,” the 13-year old daughter of the man before her calls him out, “What are you talking about?”

“We…” the man is getting more and more hesitant, “We have arranged a marriage for you with our friend’s son…”

M-M-M-MARRIAGE?

The teen’s brain is not equipped to handle big words, like marriage. It is normal for teenagers to not think that much ahead, so to have the word shoved right onto her face… it’s just… it’s too much for her to handle.

This leaves her head blank, and her face shows what her head is thinking right now.

Aida, on the other hand, ended up sounding like an excited fan, “Wow! Sis, you are guaranteed to get married to a man!?”

M-man? Man? Man??

She… is married to a man??

Her little sister is still a chatterbox, now turning to her dad, “Is he rich? Is he hot?”

Her father seems to have a bit of a smile on his face, “Owh, he’s rich, alright. His dad owns a big company, and since he is the older son, he is sure to get the company as well.”

“That is awesome!” the little runt now turns toward her big sister, shaking her back to the reality, “You are sooo lucky!”

But- but…

Her old man speaks straight toward her direction, “We are going to meet him and his family tonight. We are supposed to have dinner together. Maybe you can meet him tonight?”

But… but…

But she has no choice… There is no place for an oddball like her…

She slowly nods, trying so hard to form a smile, “Okay… understand…”

She understands very well how her life is going to be.

She is going to grow up, finish her studies, married a… married a… man…

This is how her life is going to be…

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Needless to say, the meeting is cancelled.

Her parents’ friend seems to have an unexpected issue, and thus they simply eat at the promised restaurant all by themselves.

Within that grim atmosphere of disappointment, only Sarah did not show some sort of feeling.

With the face of a fake sadness she shows, she instead relieved on the inside.

For her, at least she does not need to meet him so soon.

She need time to think about how her life is going to be, and how she wants her life to be like.

Never has she thought that she will ever regret the decision of feeling such small happiness.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Sarah just stands there, within the crowd as her family gathers at a hospital.

The place is crowded there, not just with people, but with tears and condolences as well.

It is simple to say that Sarah is affected by this atmosphere as well, though it is not thanks to these people.

She, herself, feels guilty of what she did.

The feeling of relief months ago isn’t the only thing that she has sinned herself with; it is her inability to be perceptive of her surroundings. She was too caught up with herself that she fails to see other people’s misery.

“I told you five years ago! I told you that he is going to get kidnapped!” a scream is heard among the grim and dark air.

A female of green hair is screaming toward older people before, continuously expressing her anger.

But she didn’t hear any of those.

She feels that she is the one responsible for this.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The weight of guilt is still not disappearing off from her.

It has been days since the burial, and her class, which has been cheerful, as cheerful as class filled with students can be, are also feeling heavy.

None of the students are speaking, as if each of them unconsciously decides to have a moment of silence for a classmate they never care for.

It is a noble thing to do, especially for a stranger who happens to sit in the same class as them.

Sarah pulls her head up, moving straight to another empty desk.

The green-haired girl from before is still not returning to the class. The girl is another oddball of the class, a weirdo for having one of the strangest hair colors as her natural hair color.

Seeing a fellow oddball must have disheartened her.

Yet here Sarah is, going to the school like it was nothing.

She should be ashamed for herself, as if not for her, he would have-

“My god!”

A voice happens to be Roy’s, who expresses his dissatisfaction, “Are we seriously crying for a nerd? Who the fuck gives a shit about a loser like him? He’s a nerd! People like him are public nuisance! ”

He jumps off from his chair, moving straight to where Rina is, “You think the same too, right? Don’t you wish your brother is dead? He’s finally dead! Congratulation!”

The girl looks away, ignoring his words.

Roy finds this irritating. From his face Sarah can already see him turning red, ready to explode, and explode he did.

“WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING A GUY LIKE HIM!? HE IS NOT COOL PEOPLE LIKE US! HE READS COMIC BOOKS LIKE HE WORSHIPS THEM! HE SPENDS TIME PLAYING VIDEO GAMES AND WATCH CARTOONS! A WEIRDO LIKE HIM, WHO HAS NO FRIEND, SHOULD ONLY DIE!!”

“ENOUGH!”

All eyes turn toward the one who screams, who is none other than Sarah.

She steps off from her place, now screaming back at him, “A GUY JUST DIED AND YOU ARE HAPPY!? HOW LOW CAN YOU GET!? HE JUST SPENDS HIS TIME, STAYING AWAY IN THE CORNER, DOING NOBODY ANY HARM AND YOU STILL PUNCH HIM, KICK HIM AND EVEN HUMILIATE HIM! WHAT IS YOUR BEEF WITH HIM!?”

The man scoffs at her, moving close to her, “My beef with him? It’s simple. He is not like us. I hate someone like that.”

Next thing their classmates see is Roy flying away, crashing onto the desks and chairs at the back, received a straight punch from Sarah herself.

Her eyes tear up, and she breathes heavily, it is as if she held a breath for a long time before. Her muscle tensed up as her fist is grips tightly, shaken.

“Because he’s not like us? You mean, you hate him because he is different? Do you think that’s an acceptable answer? Do you think it’s fine to hate someone because they are different?”

Sarah goes to grab a desk, throwing off toward his direction, “How about you hit me, then!? I love comic books too! They are fun! I also play video games at home! Most importantly, I’m gay!”

There, she said it.

Now everyone is going to discriminate her. Everyone is going to think twice before speaking to her. They might as well see her as a public nuisance.

She can see how shock Roy is, who still lying on the floor, having his eyes shivering uncontrollably, “S-Sarah… you’re kidding, right? You just… you just… want to spite me, right?”

That country of hers isn’t very friendly toward the likes of such. Homosexuality isn’t acceptable and in fact, a scandal among its citizens.

But that’s not the point of her anger.

Something else is inside her mind right now; something that snaps her outright, forcing her to let out all rage that has been inside her this whole time.

It is, but a short effect, as she soon realizes what she has done and quickly runs off from there. She knows that at this point she loses all of her friends.

There just no point for her to stay in that class.

Right now, she moves anywhere her legs decide to bring her; and immediately she finds herself standing inside the restroom.

Washing her face could probably calm her down right now.

As she relaxes herself with each rinse of the tap water on her face, she could hear a voice speaking beside her, “So, a lesbian?”

Sarah quickly pulls herself up, finding her breathing faster again.

From the mirror on her front, she sees Athena standing on her side, looking straight at her. Her eyes appear to be questioning her.

“What do you want?” she mutters, not looking at her directly and only using the mirror instead.

Her black-haired, asymmetrical -haired friend stares at her for a moment, before snickering at her, “Not much; just wanted to know your words. You seem to be stressed out by Shraffe’s death. Not sure being a lesbian has anything to do with this.”

Sarah seems to be taking a deep breath, as she answers her as soon as sighs, “I just… we are both weirdos, and I failed to save him when I could.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was there…” she finally moves her body to face her friend, “I saw the van that took him away. I know that van looks very suspicious, with that shaking and the sudden acceleration as it goes away. I could have… I could have called the police, or, or, tell my parents about it.”

“Is that all?” Athena keeps her glare at her, looking at with that look of disbelief.

“I… we were arranged for a marriage by our parents. He is my fiancé, and that day we were supposed to meet. I don’t want to, and I felt so happy I don’t need to meet him and his family. I shouldn’t have felt relieved if I just… if I had known what happened to him.”

“And?” her friend is still pressing her for more.

Sarah snaps, “What else do you want to know!? We are fellow weirdos and I didn’t even help him when they bullied him before. I just stared at him, hiding behind all of you when he accepts his own self all alone!”

Athena snickers at her, “You are mixing both of your insecurities and your guilt.”

“I- wha?”

What is she talking about?

Sarah pulls her head up toward her, wishing for an answer from her, “What are you-?”

“He is your cousin, and you have known for quite a long time. While he walks around, embracing his love for anime and such, you faked your identity, scared and tuck away within the comfort zone of not being looked down by the society. But you still want to be you, and as such, you see him as a target of admiration.”

Athena continues, “Now that he is no longer in this world, you feel empty. Someone you looked up to is no longer around, and now you have no idea what to do and who to turn to. You are scared and your head puts you into this story of guilt, makes you feel like you are the one responsible for his death when you are not.”

“I…but I…”

Her friend grabs her by her shoulders, speaking up close to her face, “I know it’s hard that someone close to you is dead, but sinning yourself on someone’s demise is an insult for the dead ones. Don’t do that anymore.”

Slowly, the brunette’s lips carve a smile, “Yeah… you’re right… I’m sorry I acted like a douche before…”

“Nah, Roy deserves that. He has been an idiot before and someone needs to put him in place. It’s just a matter of time till someone smacks his stupid face.”

“You’re right… but…” Sarah now stares at her, “I don’t think I have a friend anymore, not after what I told them about me.”

Athena glares once again at her, “But I’m your friend.”

“You shouldn’t be. People are going to start talking and… and… they are going to hate you if you stay close to someone like me. They will ostracize for befriending someone like me.”

The black-haired girl rolls her eyes before moving her face even closer to her.

…

…

Sarah is petrified on her place, looking toward where her friend is as he moves her face back from her.

Athena then turns to her left, noting of Rina, who stands nearby, looking at them near the door.

Her face looks baffled, glaring at them both before moving her legs out of there, “I won’t tell anybody about this. Just… stay away from me.”

The door into the restroom is closed once more, leaving the two once again all by themselves.

Sarah is still not moving, before she finally recovers few seconds later, “Y-you too?”

“Worse,” Athena mutters, “I’m bisexual.”

“Y-y-what?”

Homosexual, while being hated by people of this country, is still not very rare around there. There are just so many people that express their way of life differently.

Bisexual, on the other hand, is a very rare species of orientation in this country. You cannot just find them anyway.

So, Sarah being really shocked of her friend being one is understandable, as she has never thought that someone she knows of very well is secretly someone different than the rest.

Athena Song chuckles before saying, “Now that we are both oddballs, you don’t need to be scared of being alone. I am always around for you.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ouch…

Sarah quickly pulls her body up, rubbing her cheek as she opens up her eyes, looking straight toward the black-haired girl beside her, “That hurts, Tina. I was having the best dream ever.”

Athena, who is also wearing the same outfit as she is, glares at her before hitting her right on the head, “Pervert.”

“Ow, what was that all about!?” Sarah screams out, now rubbing her head instead.

Tina snickers, “You must be dreaming about lewd stuff again, didn’t you?”

“Hey, now, that’s a slander! You’re the flirty one, not me!”

Sarah lets out a breath, looking around the place, as she sees herself in a cave, sitting nearby a bonfire as Athena is beside her, patching up her arm with some bandage.

She seems to have a question for this location, “Where are we? I’m pretty sure I got knocked down at the plain field before.”

The black-haired girl before her mutters, “Not far from the enemy camp. You should be glad I found this cave yesterday.”

“You carried me all the way here?”

“Yeah,” the woman now glares at her, “As a doctor, I want you to start exercising after we finish this mission. I also want a compensation for my back pain.”

The blonde-haired woman winces at her words, “That’s not a good thing to say to your girlfriend.”

She lets out another breath, now turning toward where the entrance is, wondering, “Are we the only one left?”

“Unfortunately,” the doctor responds to her, “I was wondering why they would send the whole team of Black Ops division to capture one person. They didn’t tell us she was a war criminal instead of a petty one.”

Sarah pulls out what seems to be a smartphone in a black box, but when she presses some buttons on it, images started popping out of the screen, giving the 3D effect like in the cinema.

She is going through a document, as she starts reading the words that pop out of her box, “Scarlet Hathaway, a ringleader of kidnapping, prostitution and recently, selling advanced weaponries toward dangerous organizations, mostly those who have been marked as a threat by Specialized Elite Squadron. It makes sense why they had to send their Black Ops for someone like her.”

As she is talking to her girlfriend, her eyes are still attached toward the document, with some of them are being viewed by her orbs a bit longer.

_‘Assisting the sex cult, Way of the Stars in kidnapping and raping 100 children of both genders from all over the world.’_

Her grips turn stronger, as her hand is shaking, almost like she is shivering.

“HEY!”

Her eyes are snapped back to Athena, who is now glaring at her, worried from how she views her, muttering, “I know that you have developed a strong hatred toward her, but focus on the mission right now. My device is already busted, so you are the only one who can access the SES’s armory database. Whatever you do, you will have to put your feelings away for this one.”

“Yeah… you’re right… I’m sorry…” she shakes her head, trying to get rid of her overwhelming feeling of guilt and anger that may has resurfaced after 10 years of lying dormant.

How could she not be angered by this criminal?

It’s because of people like her that she joined this privatized military company called SES.

But what this Scarlet did in the past is what turns this into a personal thing for her.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An hour later, the two put their heads out of the cave, as they slowly walk forward, making their way to the entrance of the enemy camp not far from here.

Moving past the field of white and red, they quickly run close to the gate, hiding behind the cover away from prying eyes.

Athena’s voice is heard whispering out loud to her, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Plan?” she turns toward her friend, looking confused, “I don’t have any plan? Don’t you?”

The woman shakes her head, stating the answer very clearly with only her head.

A facepalm is normally appropriate for this type of situation, however Sarah feels like she has a plan that should work right now.

“I’ll go at the front. You cover me.”

The medic quickly takes note on the absence of something very important, “That’s not a plan! There are too many guys with guns in here!”

The blonde snickers, pulling out the same box from earlier, taking a good look at that thing, “You know how they do in those superhero story you saw on TV, right? If you are outnumbered, you simply need to dish out a cool armor for that.”

Athena realizes where she is looking at, now screaming out at her, “That Bringer Device of yours is still a prototype! There are still a lot of rooms for improvement! We don’t even know if your body can handle that or not!”

“Might as well figure it out in the field, right?” she winks at her girlfriend, “I’ll be the decoy here. You should go and find Scarlet.”

“Wait, you said I’m going to be your backup!”

“Change of plan.”

“Just like that!?”

Ignoring her scream of anger, Sarah steps out from the cover, running straight into the base, moving forward toward the nearest guards as she pulls out a handgun, shooting straight toward the two.

Both bullets ended up hitting their legs, hurting them so much they fall of the ground, groaning in pain.

One of them, however, takes off their communication device, speaking out into it, “We’re under attack! The enemy has breached into the compound. I repeat; we’re under attack!”

Sarah runs straight into the middle of the base, quickly finding herself being surrounded by so many armed men with guns aiming at her.

Instead of fear, wary or anxious, the blond-haired woman instead grinning wide, muttering, “Now that I got your attention…”

The woman now pulls out her device once more, with her actions seem to have riled up the enemies around her.

Their hands are fidgeting on their firearms, seemingly ready to shoot if she ever does anything else. Too bad for them that the device in her hand is voice-activated.

**“Initiate Combat mode.”**

With her voice alone, the device somehow shifts itself, from a simple rectangular box into having all four of its sides pop out as the parts that isn’t pop changing their color into white.

A robotic female voice is suddenly hears, coming out from that device.

_COMBAT MODE INITIATE. GUNNER MODE SELECTED._

As if the sudden change of her box and the robot voice is not enough, the soldiers are quickly being alerted to the white light coming out from the sides of the box.

Not wanting to wait for anything anymore, the soldiers all unknowingly agree to the same thing; it is best to shoot her rather than waiting for their demise.

Unfortunately that’s what they should have done before instead of surrounding her to stare and watch.

When all fingers pulling the triggers, the bullets are all being shot forward to where the target is, filling her with holes with the snow where she stands turning red like those at the front of the camp.

At least that’s what each of those armed people wish to see. Instead they see how white rippling walls appear out from the box and around her, saving her from hot leads raining onto her.

From Sarah’s point of view, she sees herself surrounded by white walls, which for her is a very new experience.

Next, she notices of her costume is already changed, now wearing black suit that somehow covers everything except her head.

From the walls around her, white light appears showering onto her, and with that she gains additional pieces of costumes around her, covering legs, arms, shoulders, chest and now her head.

The walls soon disappears, leaving the same person with an entirely different appearance; having white armor on top of her black body suit, looking like a soldier complete with a rhino-like helmet and grey reflective visor. The box is now strapped onto a belt around her waist.

All eyes are looking at her, completely confused by what they are supposed to be looking at.

Sarah notices of two black handguns held by both her hands, quickly taking this moment of petrification to counter their previous attacks back onto them, pulling the triggers and aiming her weapons all around her.

Some of the bullets hit them, but some of them don’t. Nevertheless, it is enough for her to jumps off and escapes to the nearest cover, which happens to be a lorry.

The surviving enemies now focusing their firepower onto that lorry as they are moving closer and closer to where she is.

Sarah takes a deep, breath, having her eyes all around her as she then sees herself at the vehicle’s side mirror, now admiring her new look.

“This looks pretty awesome,” she comments on herself, “I wasn’t told of this, but I am not complaining.”

Pulling out her device, she sees that the screen is now showing what could have been identified as a rough sketch of her, seeing only lines that make up her look with a word on it.

‘LIGHTBRINGER SCHWARZ’

That must be the name of her costume. Only she knows what to call herself if she were to disguise herself.

Noises of bullets hitting the side of the truck are heard, louder and louder as she can tell that those people are nearing her.

“Man, I wish I have more than just handguns now,” she mutters to herself, looking at the gun in her right hand.

Sarah then notices of something, as the pistol now having the same white ripples around it, forming bigger into a submachine gun.

She ponders on what just happened, but then a smile forms on the inside of the helmet as she nods, understanding something.

Schwarz now jumps out of her cover, aiming her weapon straight toward some of the enemies, who are proceed to shoot her before shooting out red ink out of their bodies.

Sarah then runs forward toward the one of the two surviving on the left, jumping and smashing her left boot onto him and turns to her left, taking out a shotgun, shooting the one that side until there’s no more left.

She then turns to her back, seeing more enemies shooting toward her as she pulls back out both of her pistols, shooting each of them straight to the head.

The white-armored soldier takes a deep breath, relieving herself from the adrenaline but is quickly being interrupted by the earth shaken and explosion occurs nearby.

Schwarz turns around, startled as she starts running and covering herself inside a building.

Standing close to the wall, she leans as she hears an engine rumbling nearer to where she is.

“A tank too? They are not joking when they said that this woman has everything a military has!”

Moving her hand up, she takes another breath, trying so hard to visualize a certain weapon.

A green tank comes rolling into the camp, with the turret moving around, looking for where she is hiding.

She then jumps out of the building right at the front of the tank, holding onto a modern bazooka, complete with a sight assist as she presses the trigger, shooting straight toward the front of the tank, blowing it up and rendering it useless.

The impact throws her off, hitting the biggest building behind her as the weapon inside her hands disappears upon hitting the ground.

Sarah slowly pushes herself up, using the wall behind her as a support, muttering as she does so, “That bazooka is way stronger than it is supposed to. Am I even using this system correct?”

But then she hears the window near her being crashed, and Athena jumping out from it and instinctively, she follows her by flipping and rolling forward.

One part of the building explodes; with holes appear on the wall, landing a bit close to the two women.

The medic breathes rapidly as she slowly looking at the figure beside her, “Sarah, is that you?”

Instead of answering her, she ignores her question with her own question, “What happened in there? That looks like an explosion by a C4!”

“She was trying to kill me!”

The non-armored woman points her hand forward, showing out toward a red-headed female in red jacket, walks out through the hole on the wall slowly.

Athena now screams in shock, “How are you not dead, yet!?”

“Scarlet…” Sarah mutters, pulling out a pistol and aims it at her, “You can either surrender yourself or you can try to fight both of us at once.”

The red-headed, short-haired woman before the two simply giggling herself as she mutters, “Quite a costume you got there. I thought SES abandoned the whole ‘superhero’ shtick long time ago.”

Sarah has no idea what the heck she is talking about, but she is sure as hell not going to let her escape.

Yet her hands are shivering, as she feels excited with her hands itching to shoot her right on the head.

Luckily for her, Athena grabs her hand, calling out to her, “Be careful. She can do magic.”

“Wha-huh?” the white soldier turns toward her, confused by her choice of words, “What did you just said?”

“Your girlfriend’s correct,” Scarlet snickers at her reaction, “I can do magic. Not the basic rabbit-out-of-hat kind, but the one from those Japanese cartoons.”

“Are you serious? Magic? Don’t try to trick me, you pedophile bitch,” Sarah still hold her guns straight at her, “I’m going to repeat this. Surrender yourself o-“

The two can feel a gust of wind moving past them, with Athena quickly turning toward her back, seeing a rapier stuck on the dead tank.

The two then realizes the sky turning darker, looking up and is horrified with what they are looking at.

Up on the sky, billions and billions of the same rapiers are flying above them, rotating clockwise and anti-clockwise as if they are forming circles of different sizes.

The rapiers then struck down toward them, and the last words she hear is, “I can’t believe someone like you get to be with someone like him.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next thing she sees is the ceiling of an old and small building, waking up and pushing herself up and quickly noticing that she is no longer wearing her armor.

She then turns to her side, seeing Athena pulling herself up, muttering, “This place looks weird for an afterlife.”

A wooden door nearby opens up, with a figure in red scarf enters the room, greeting the two, “Took you awhile to open your eyes.”

“What the hell!??” Athena screams out, widening her eyes in horror.

Sarah feels the same as she is, looking at this figure before her, who speaks up to her, “This is the Land of the Dead. Welcome.”

Before her stands a female in red scarf and a dark red shirt, who has the same face as her, “I am Sarah Syarifah. Are you Sarah Syarifah too?”

**End origin chapter 3.**

**I know this chapter doesn’t have much, but I realized that there are way too many things I don’t want to be spoiled in here.**

**Now, I really want to write the real story, but I also want to write more origin chapters to introduce more characters, so this is how I am doing this.**

**I’ll be writing two chapters at once, alternating between both type of chapters and see which finish first. The chapter that finish first will be the next chapter.**

**So…**

**Next (real): Without a transportation, Shraffe’s find his journey will take quite a long time, so they will have to rest at the nearby village. Sarah and Athena are involved with whatever happens with the other Sarah.**

**Or…**

**Next (origin): Sakura and Kyu Aranzo’s origin.**

**  
**


	5. O4 - Sakura Aranzo; Hero Sakura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An origin about Sakura Aranzo

“Heartbeat; normal.”

“Breathing; normal.”

“Blood pressure; normal.”

“The subject is now active.”

Sakura opens up her eyes, and from the darkness she found herself looking at the ceiling above her.

She couldn’t think of anything. She couldn’t even think of who she is. There are no memories inside her mind. The name she called herself with is just a name her grandfather called her.

At least she thinks he is her grandfather; the rotten-looking man announced himself as such.

She could not remember how did she gets in here, nor could she ever know why is she here in the first place.

What she knows that every day is all similar to her.

Everyday, she wakes up to herself strapped on a bed, with tubes coming in and out of her, or attached onto her. Her grandfather and some other people will then bring her into a different room for painful things.

She has no idea what kind of painful thing they inflicted onto her, but she does knows that it is a very painful process.

Sometimes it feel like she is bruising, sometimes she feel like being cut into pieces, sometimes her mind goes blank and all she sees is darkness.

In a normal situation young kids like her would cry from these constant actions, but her mind is no longer registering “cry” as an available action.

All she could do is to let them do what they want into her, and hope that she can finally sleep again… until the next session.

Today, however, is a very strange case.

She stays awake in that room of hers, waiting for her grandfather to immediately brings her out of there, but nothing happens.

She just lies there with the dimly lighted lamp nearby and nothing else.

Until the door opens up, and a man appears before her, looking concerned at her as he mutters words she could never forgets.

“It’s finally over. You can go now.”

The rest is history, and all of this sequence of events is just part of Sakura Aranzo’s memories.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Sakura… Oi, Sakura, wake up already.”

The short-haired, purple-haired girl in pajama opens up her eyes, no moaning as she stares straight toward a young man’s black-haired face, who is staring at her with a glare on his face.

“Sakura, I know today is the school holiday, but you should at least eat your breakfast.”

The girl pushes herself up from the bed, scratching her head, muttering toward him, “Kyu… can I sleep a bit longer?”

“This is why I told you not to watch anime during midnight!”

His stare seems to have shifted toward a TV and a bunch of DVDs laying around, just nearby on the other side of the bed, “You even marathon the whole series! That was two seasons worth of anime!”

Sakura relaxing her arms as she mutters, “You’re watching with me too…”

Kyu sighs as he moves toward the discs and starts collecting them, “No, I sleep in after five episodes.”

“Owh, yeah…” she smiles at him, “I get to used you as my body pillow. It was good…”

“Y-you what!?” Kyu turns toward her in shock, “You molested me in my sleep!? I was kind enough to sleep in with you in your room! You told me you just want to watch an anime with someone, and I do that for you! I didn’t say you could just touch me all you want!!”

It seems she feels disappointed with him, frowning at his words, “Quit being ridiculous. I am your fiancée. We are going to touch each other’s body after we are married.”

“Shut up and go eat your breakfast!”

He storms off from there, leaving her all by herself as she scoffs at him, “Why did I have to be wedded to him?”

Her eyes then stare toward one of the DVD covers still laying around as she gets off from her bed, grabbing the cover as she stares at the image, especially toward a girl with similar hair color with her, only longer.

“At least I’m not being molested by my own brother…”

She throws the cover off from her before walking out of there.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Sakura walks down into the living room, seeing Kyu setting up the table nearby.

Also at the table is a man with glasses on his head, with the same hair color as Kyu. This man seems older than she is, and he is currently reading a newspaper intently.

Sakura, still inside her pajama, moves toward the table and sits across the man, calling out to him, “Good morning, dad!”

“Ah,” the man seems to have finally noticed of her, “Sakura, you’ve finally awake? I thought you’ll never awaken till the noon.”

Sakura chuckles sheepishly, with Kyu is heard sighing, “We even made a promise with our friends before.”

“Promise?” the girl turns toward her, looking confused.

“Really?” he is now glaring at her, “We were invited by Stella for her birthday? In her private island?”

“Owh yeah… it’s tomorrow…” Sakura mutters, finally remembering the detail, “She said she’s going to help send us to her island by boat.”

“Yeah, and we’re supposed to be at the dock in an hour.”

Sakura suddenly has a cat smile on her face, mischievously responding, “It’s just an hour away. We can get there in minutes. What’s the rush? Or were you perhaps can’t wait to meet your girlfriend?”

Once again she receives a glare from him, “What are you talking about? We are fiancée. I don’t have anyone else.”

“It’s just a contract,” Sakura shrugs her shoulders, “All boys and girls reaching the age of 20 are required to be wedded to either their loved ones or toward a random, designated partner. We were paired up to each other based on our matching algorithms. In any point you can just decide to break your engagement and be with someone else.”

Her father nods, “True. This is the law made since we have an issue with under populated citizens. The government has become too desperate for a solution that they have decided that no matter if they are siblings, they will be wedded to each other as long as they are a pair of male and female and they have matching personalities. But, that law is lenient enough that it will allow any request made for anyone with relationships.”

He pulls his head up toward her, “Which brings me to this; Sakura, I’ve received details that it was you who requested to be engaged to your brother, is that correct?”

Sakura has her eyes widen, with Kyu looking at her curiously.

“I…” she tries to find a right word to reply with, “I might have said that I preferred to be my brother’s wife if I were to choose a type of man. I didn’t know they would take that literally…”

“Really??” Kyu goes to sit beside her, “I’m glad to hear that, but also quite disturbed.”

She quickly looks away from him, “You can decline if you want to. We are 18 years old. There are still two years left before marriage. Just go and marry Stella. I’m fine with anyone nice. There aren’t that many choices after all. This town is so small that our school only has 100 students in it, all within the same age.”

She suddenly felt a flick on her forehead as she rubs the sting off.

Kyu speaks up to her, “At least I know my sister loves me.”

The two siblings continue to argue with their dad continue to ignore them, moving his face back toward his newspaper.

But he isn’t reading the papers; instead he is actually staring toward a phone on his lap.

Secretly, he was watching a news titled ‘Rejoice, parents. The moments are finally here.’

The father looks somewhat sad by this news, but none of his children knows of that.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“From now on, she will be your sister.”_

_A young boy looks up toward a man in glasses, and looks back toward a girl in purple hair, looking empty on her face. She did not look back at him, but instead her look indicates that her mind isn’t there with them._

_He quickly moves forward, approaching her as he asks her, “I am Kyu. What’s your name?”_

_“Sa…kura…”_

_“Sakura? That’s a cute name.”_

_The girl now pulls her head toward him, looking at him for the first time._

_“We are now a family, okay?” the man in glasses smiles at them, as he smiles back at him._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Over here!”

The siblings get off from the bus as their eyes immediately started to look around, only to hear the female voice calling out to him.

Their heads turn to where the voice comes from, as they are looking at a brown-haired girl in tanktop and shorts, waving at them as she stands nearby a boat.

Sakura stares at her brother, speaking up to him and instructing him to do something, “You go first; I’ll be joining you guys in a minute.”

“You sure?” he stares back at her, looking concerned.

She nods, “Yeah, I just have to check my bag for something.”

Kyu moves away from her, joining the girl as she quickly grabs onto his hand, holding it tight.

The purple-haired girl glares at them for a moment before taking a look at her bagpack behind her bag, looking into the inside of the bag.

She isn’t exactly looking for something; she just looking away from her brother as she whispers to herself, “What an idiot…”

No, perhaps she is looking for something. That something is a picture of her and her brother, standing side by side at a park.

Quickly shaking her head off, she pulls her face out of the bag and looks toward the two with a smile on her face, casually moving in to join them.

“Are we ready to go now, Stella?”

The brown-haired girl nods, responding to her, “If we don’t have anything else to do here, we should be going now. Everyone has been gearing for the ride.”

The three gets into the boat, toward where most are as they see more people waving and greeting them. The three then goes to join them, sitting on benches in there.

To her surprise, Stella lets Sakura to sit beside Kyu, though her eyes roll in realization that she just want to sit at the opposite of the boat, in front of him.

Kyu wonders, “Where is the island, exactly? I never heard of a private island even from your city-owning family.”

The brunette giggles as she mutters, “It’s a secret island for us, and it is quite far from here. You guys can go ahead and sleep. It is going to be quite a journey.

She isn’t wrong.

Minutes after that, all of them started to yawn, as Sakura pulls Kyu’s arm and use his shoulder as her headrest.

Her mind drifts as she once again enters her dream world.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_“Sakura…”_

_A raspy, creepy voice is heard as soon as little Sakura opens up her eyes in that dark room._

_She sees an old man; bald, long moustache moving to the left and right, one normal eye while the other is a white ball with a single dot, and not much teeth left._

_For a young child, this is already a scary appearance, though if she were born in a better home, her parents would be angry for her perception of ‘scary’._

_But this man gives her enough reason to be scared._

_“Sakura…” the man slowly forms a word as he moves his head closer to her, as if he is trying to whisper to her, “I have a present for you…”_

_Present? With him, it is never a good present._

_“You can have this present… if you can withstand its pain and contain it…”_

_Her sight gone dark and when she opens up again, she is sitting on a chair, wearing patient-like attire, and her limbs are strapped around the chair._

_There are wires all attached to her, and she is wearing a big helmet with more wires on it. She also notices something is worn around her waist, but she has no clue what it is._

_The room she is inside is no different. She only sees a mirror of herself, but she can hear voices all around her. She knows she is being watched, but she has no idea where._

_“Subject 331, began experiment.”_

_A man in white hazmat suit appears walking into the room while holding onto a tray of something. She could not see what it is._

_The man stops near her, taking out what seems to be a medal out of more on the tray and holds it up above him toward the mirror._

_She tries to take a peek of that medal, and she has no that thing truly is. All she see is a snake image._

_The man then puts the medal onto her waist with something heard coming from it. Her mind is too hazy to decipher what she hears, but her stomach suddenly feels a sensation._

_“GAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”_

_Sakura screams out loud, with her whole body feels stinging feeling. Snakes come out of her chest, and her hair slowly turns into little snakes._

_Her eyes turn yellow and her restrain is loosening._

_But that’s not what happened in the end._

_In the end she is zapped and the medal is removed, turning her back to normal._

_The hazmat suit person puts the medal back, now taking out another one._

_They tested medals after medals onto her, all give her varying effect. Sometimes she turns into a lion, sometimes her body turns bright and sometimes she is a he._

_But the effect is all the same; she feels pain._

_What she remembers next is lying on her bed, now looking at the old man once again._

_“Sakura… you don’t get any present today… you don’t get to play with anything… you are disappointment…”_

_She hears with nothing to feel about it. He has been speaking those false promises for a long time, she simply thinks that he is messing around with her._

_The only present for her is for her to get out of here, but that doesn’t seem to the case either._

_Before she is asleep, she sees an adult woman glaring at her, grinning at her. Her white hair and black clothing flow away from her, as she waves at her before walking away._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sakura wakes up from her dream.

It’s the memory again.

She has been dreaming about the time she was experimented on ever since she escaped there. It has been haunting her, but for her it’s just another dream.

The feeling she gives when facing those dreams is the same that she gives when facing those pains; no feeling.

But… that woman… that looks like her… but with different hair…

Who is she? Her mother? Her sister?

“Kyu?”

Sakura finally notices something strange.

She is still sitting inside the boat, but there’s no one else there but her.

Another memory appears inside her brain.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_The trip takes a while, and not everyone decides to just stay inside where the seats are, waiting for the boat to reach its destination._

_She at first does not join others in having fun above the sea. She isn’t like anyone and much prefer to just stay in one place, not interacting with anyone else._

_After all, she spent her days as a child all alone. It just happened to have become her habit._

_Kyu suddenly appears into the area, sitting close beside her, “Are you going to stay here for the rest of the journey?”_

_“It’s not going to take a long time, right?” she replies to him without even looking at him, “Just go and spend some more time with Stella.”_

_“Alright, I sense some jealousy in your tone.”_

_The girl now pulls her head up, “No, I’m not.”_

_Kyu shifts his seat for a moment as he wonders, “Sakura, is there something wrong?”_

_“There’s nothing wrong with me.”_

_“You look pale, just like this morning. It’s as if you remember something horrifying, or scary.”_

_Her hands suddenly shaking, yet she chose to ignore him, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_Kyu mutters, “This morning, I heard you calling out to my name, crying, before I woke you up.”_

_Her eyes slightly widen but she looks away from him, “Just a nightmare.”_

_Kyu sighs, ruffling her head with his palm, startling her, “Just… tell me if there’s anything, okay?”_

_Stella suddenly runs into the boat, screaming out at them both, “Embrace yourself! Thunderstorm is coming!”_

_The young man pulls himself up in shock, “Thunderstorm!? But the sky was clear minutes ago!”_

_“I don’t know how, but the place is suddenly raining!”_

_A loud voice is heard from outside, “Wave incoming!”_

_The place suddenly shifts upward, with all of them falls back into the boat and that’s all she can remember._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sakura slowly walks out of the boat, as her eyes slowly move and trace along the grey dull surface of a building before her.

“This is…” she mutters in shock, “this is not the private island.”

The dull surface she’s looking at is the dock they were standing before.

It appears she has returned back from where the boat moved from.

“I-I’m back?” she wonders to herself as she steps off from the boat, and back to the land, “Was I washed ashore?”

Very unlikely, her mind told her.

She is all by herself, and the boat doesn’t look like it was wet on the inside.

Sakura goes to move forward, but her steps halt.

She hears groaning and her head turns to the left.

Her eyes widen, and so is her mouth. Her hands are numb while her brain is unable to decipher what she is looking at.

What she can say is that a group of half-naked, torn clothing people with nearly-bald head are mauling over an animal, before raising their heads toward her, showing off their red, glowing eyes.

Those people stand upward, and slowly charging forward toward her, and that is enough for her brain to activate once again, telling her to run as fast as she could not.

So she tried the impossible, dashing off away from there.

The girl runs, escaping from the dock and reach the highway road leading toward the town.

Unfortunately, the same type of people are mauling onto other animals along the path, and sometime each other.

“Sakura!”

Her head turn to the left, startled by a familiar face in black vest stepping out from the forest at the side of the road.

“Kyu!” she calls out to him, “What happened here?”

“What happened?” he questioned her, “What do you mean ‘what happened’? It’s the infected, that’s what!”

“In-infected? Infected of what?” she continues questioning him, with confusion is still clouding her brain.

Kyu did not answer her, instead, grabbing her hand and escapes away from there, back into the forest.

He keeps on running away, holding onto her with some of the ‘infected’ noticed of them, going after them all.

The two eventually moving past Stella, who is also wearing the same vest, but with something around her waist as she holds onto a medal.

The same medal that she saw years ago; the one she almost believed she will never see again…

Her words are heard muttering, “W-wait… that’s…”

**“I call thee…Brynhildr!”**

The medal lights up with a golden brilliance as she inserts the circular object into a circular hollow on the front of the belt-like object around her waist.

An excited, baritone male voice speaks up, heard from the belt itself.

_MYTH: VOLSUNG SAGA! BRYNHILDR: VALKYRIE OF ASGARD!_

Golden lights appear out of her back and, in shapes of ribbons, circling her onto her chest as pieces of armor flying out and onto the skin, embedding her along with a dark blue bodysuit. She wears a winged helmet that also covers her face, only showing white monochrome eyes instead.

A pair of large white wings appears behind her, as she is now holding onto a golden spear and flies upward before striking forward onto the zombies.

Sakura stops her movement, now looking straight at her as more people in different armors appear running toward the infected, smacking them all into pieces.

“Wha- how…”

“That was the Hero Belt,” Kyu speaks up to her as he stares at her confusion, “They were right, don’t they? You just woke up.”

“Just… woke up?” she turns toward him, “What do you mean…?”

“Let’s get back to the camp first. I’ll be explaining everything there.”

He signals her to follow him, as the two now running deep into the forest, and eventually reaching a campsite with tents and others.

Sakura mutters, “These people… who are they?”

“You don’t remember?” Kyu looks at her funny, “These are all our schoolmates! Even the one fighting! All 100 of us!”

100… yeah…

Sakura holds onto her head, muttering, “This town is so small… there are only 100 students… and I don’t recognize any of them…”

Now that she thinks about it, she never bothered to remember the names of other students. She could only remember Stella because she is… she is… someone…

Kyu sighs, muttering, “Who am I kidding, of course you don’t recognize them. You never make friends with any of them. That’s just you, I guess. Ever since you’ve arrived in our home, you’ve been very quiet to the point of not making any social contacts.”

“Is it… really that bad?”

He quickly shakes his head, “Not at all. It’s a good thing, really. If you started having a boyfriend, I am going to get jealous.”

Sakura quickly gets annoyed by him, “Why don’t you just go and take care of your Stella?”

Kyu chuckles at her, asking her something, “Feeling better?”

All expression loses as Sakura turns cold once more.

Sighing, Kyu points his thumb upward, muttering a word toward her, “Up.”

Up?

She pulls her head up, and a sky is what she expected to see; a darken sky due to the weather.

But that’s not what she saw. What she saw is a ceiling-like sky, peeling off as the sky is a-

“It’s a fake,” he mutters, “It turns out, we have been living in a building of some sort.”

“Building? Not an island?” she turns back toward him, “How did you know this?”

“A man told us. He looks really old, like, older than the parents, like in the movies. Never thought I see one in real life.”

“Old… man?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “He wants us to call him ‘grandfather’. Is he related to our dad? I don’t think so…”

“G-g-g-grandfather!?”

The purple-haired girl steps backward, her legs shiver and started to fail on her.

Kyu notices this and wonders, “You know this guy?”

“He-…. He made those belts… and those medals…”

“Ah…” he looks a bit relieved, “I know that. That belt is a Hero Belt, and that medal is a Hero’s Mark. That old man said that it was made from a research he had started before; about emulating the power of figures from the history and mythologies into reality. Quite a useful thing, though one person can only use medals related to certain type of heroes.”

“That reminds me,” he runs into a tent, before coming back out, holding the front of the belt with him, “Take this with you.”

Her eyes widen even more when she sees the belt, quickly shaking her head, “I- What about you?”

“I have one,” Kyu moves his vest a bit, revealing the belt around his waist, hidden under the vest, “My medal is unusable for some reason, but I can use other, non-people medals to generate weapons. That’s pretty much 90% of the medals we can use.”

He then takes out a white medal that looks more like an over-sized ring, “Take this one. It’s the weapon-type medal. Everybody can use this one, but one person can only have one type of weapon for them.”

“I-…”

He pushes the two objects into her hands, mumbling, “You have been sleeping for a year. Unlike some of us, some of you woke up later than us. Believe me when I said that you’ll need this to survive.”

“What… what happened out there?” Sakura questions him, unable to comprehend the meaning behind his words.

Sighing again, he turns away from her, “Those… infected… Those are our parents…”

“P-p-parents???”

He nods, “I woke up somewhere at the beach nearby, and our dad tried to kill me. He tried to eat me, so I had to kill him…”

“Wha-how?” she is flabbergasted, “I don’t get it…”

“Me either,” he turns back toward her, now pointing two of his fingers toward somewhere behind her, “But I believe that place has the answer we are looking for.”

She turns around, looking at the direction he is showing, now seeing a grey tower far from there, “Wh-what is that tower?”

“I wish to know the answer for that too.”

Suddenly, Stella runs into the campsite, along with some other people as she screams out at them, “We should be going now!”

“Wait, what happened?” Kyu wonders, “What’s the rush?”

“The infected… they are going crazy! They are attacking us now! We should hurry!”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1st January 1992:

I’ve finally received my first son. We all received our children at the same time. I have never seen my wife looks so happy. If only she could live longer…

…

1st March 1996:

I’ve finally received my daughter, even if it’s a bit late. I have to wonder why the lab took so long to let her go. She’s already four years old, just like her brother. Let’s hope nothing bad happened.

…

1st January 1999:

My kids are going to their school. This school is big, only if 100 kids are entering. Though, I have been wondering; what happened to the other hundreds of children? For those who don’t get to be sent to their dead parents, what the lab did to them? We don’t have orphanage here, that’s for sure.

…

27th October 2006:

My kids are finally going to be engaged. According to the rule, if nothing bad happened after their 18th birthdays, all 100 children need to be married to each other. This is for the sake of humanity after all.

But… how am I going to explain my son and my daughter marrying each other? I know blood is no longer a boundary in this generation, but…

But at least they will always be a family, right? At least they are going to happy; loving each other, taking care of the kids they received from the lab with each other… forever…

…

…

25th September 2010:

I… I think my time is up… I’m going to join my wife soon.

What is the lab doing? Where’s the antidote? They are supposed to be making the antidote right about now! It has been years!

We have done everything! We gave them our blood; semen; everything! We took care of the children they assigned to us! We don’t even know our child!

Whatever… I don’t care… My kids… they have the antidote in them, right? That why the lab was keeping them, right?

At least they can stay together… forever…

…

31st December 2010:

Honey… time’s up.

They’ve announced… that today will be our last…

The kids… they are going to go to a private island… I’m sure they are going to be safe…

They… are the last hope of humanity after all…

I’m sorry

Thvrtdfyjfhndfshcxthrhfgoix

[END DIARY]

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It’s a nightmare… one after another…

She first woke up, all alone, scared as she was chased after by people acting like zombies.

When she met her brother again, they are forced to escape from what could have been their safe haven.

Now, their numbers are already thinning, running through the ghost town, chased after those relentless infected.

“Run!”

Sakura, Kyu and a few of them, running on the straight, empty line toward where the tower is.

The door is ajar, as if it is inviting them to enter, yet they take that chance anyway, running safely into the door before closing it.

Their parents may have been fast, but their unhealthy limbs show how strong they are. The door is unbreakable for them.

The remaining five people are safe in the dark, abandoned building.

Letting out a relief, Kyu mutters toward all of them, “We are… we are safe now…”

Stella smiles at him, but then she looks around, “Wait, where’s Sakura?”

Kyu turns to his side. Sakura is supposed to be beside them, but she is not around anymore.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unknown to her, the purple-haired girl walks all by herself, guided by nothing but her feet, walking deep into the building.

She turns to see a room with nothing but a chair and chooses to ignore it.

She then reaches a room with a mirror, showing a bed for and nothing else. Again, she chooses to ignore it.

Sakura then reaches an ajar door, looking like an office as she walks into the room.

She turns to check a computer, pressing keys over keys; buttons over buttons, till something pops up on the screen.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject 201: Stella

Venus: Incompatible

Hang Li Po: Incompatible

Bynhildr: Compatible

Fa Mulan: Compatible

Conclusion: The compatible figures are strong, independent women. Perfect for the next generation. Released.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject 445: Kyu

Siegfried: Incompatible

Rama: Incompatible

Zeus: Incompatible

Taming Sari: Incompatible

Shraffe: Compatible

Conclusion: The only medal compatible for him is of an unknown individual. We do not know why we made this medal. Subject is considered a wild card. Released only onto a trusted employee.

Additional Info: The name of the medal is a name of one of our employees, but we do not have any information on him as of now. Additional information needed.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject 091: Jackson

Hang Tuah: Incompatible

King Arthur: Incompatible

Beowulf: Incompatible

Ivan the Terrible: Incompatible

A random caveman named Ugg: Incompatible

Conclusion: Do not compatible with any of the available medals. Disposed.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wha- two of these… are the names of those she knows.

Subjects? What do they mean by subjects?

Sakura suddenly focuses her eyes on a specific file.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject 100: Sakura

Medusa: Incompatible

Brynhildr: Incompatible

Malahayati: Incompatible

Mahsuri: Incompatible

Jeanne D’arc: Incompatible

Parvati: Incompatible

Shamhat: Compatible

Loki: Compatible

Conclusion: A strange case of having compatible with two dissimilar medals. The compatible figures are a sacred harlot and a god of mischief. More experiment is needed.

Second Conclusion: Similarity is both figures having sexual intercourse with inhuman figures. Shamhat is known for taming the wild man created by the Sumerian deities, Enkidu with sex. Loki is a being that has several children; a wolf, Fenrir, a snake, Jormugandr, a female being, Hel and a horse, Sleipnir and many more.

…

Subject 100: Sakura

Experiment: Reproduction

Offspring created: With Horse#3 – Horse#X3

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sakura suddenly feels pain, holding onto her head as she began to recall more of her past.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Sakura,” the rotten old man stands beside her, as the two are now walking through a forest.

The man slowly points out toward a horse, “That’s your son. Healthy, isn’t he?”

He then moves his finger toward a giant octopus that hides quickly inside a lake, “That’s also your son. Quite a strong one, indeed.”

The man continues to point his fingers around, and none of those are human enough in term of appearances.

“And that is…” his finger points toward an older woman with white hair and black clothing, smiling at her, “That’s your daughter; my favorite great-granddaughter. Her father is amazing. He’s just like you…”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The purple-haired girl starts to hyperventilating, breathing in and out heavily as she nearly falls down.

“Got you!”

Her head quickly turns around, looking pale as she sees Kyu catching onto her, smiling at her, “Hey, don’t go exploring without me. I also want to know what this place is.”

He helps her standing straight again as he notices of the computer, “You found something interesting, isn’t it? We should read them together next time.”

“But first, we need to regroup. Others said they found something interesting.”

He runs out of the room, pulling her hand with him as she takes a glance at the last paragraph of her file before following him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

With Shraffe (one of our employees) –

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The two siblings run through the corridor, eventually finding themselves standing inside a huge room.

Despite its size, this room has nothing around it other than a giant circular, medal-shaped object hanging before them all.

Kyu turns around, seeing Stella not far from the entrance, calling out to her, “Hey, what’s that thing?”

The girl shakes her head, “No idea. There are no notes, scribbles, papers, or computers here. We have no information on what this place is.”

One of the unnamed fellows speaks up toward them, “Guys, perhaps we should just leave this room alone. We won’t find anything if we stand around any longer.”

“Yeah,” Kyu nods in agreement, “Sakura just found a computer in an office somewhere nearby. Maybe we could find anything there.”

Sakura is startled by his words, reacting too late as the rest are already reaching toward the entrance.

Fortunately for her, a voice halting their movement any further, calling out their attentions toward this voice’s owner, “Or perhaps I could tell you about this place myself?”

All five of them turn their heads around, looking straight toward an old, rotten man, wearing a lab coat and holding onto a stick, walking slowly out of the shadow.

“It’s the’ grandfather’ guy!” one of the unnamed friend speaks up.

Sakura feels her feet betraying her, and no longer has any control over her limbs. She falls onto the ground, with Kyu quickly grabs her bag.

“G-g-g-grandfather… it’s really you…” she mumbles out loud, letting others hear hers.

The old man slowly laughs out at her, slowly sounding maniacal, “You remembered me, Sakura? I have never thought you would even know this old fart?”

“Hey!” Stella speaks to him with a louder, harsher tone, “How about you tell us about this place already!?”

“Young one,” the old man snickers at her words, “The world is still moving. There is no need for impatience.”

The old man slowly moves around the hall, speaking up to them all, “Let me first introduce myself. I am Zeke Matoi. I am the last living human in this planet.”

“You are one crazy old man!” one of the unknown friends mutters out loud, “Last living human? We are still here, you know? We are not robots!”

Zeke chuckles at him, “Let me rephrase that. I am the last known living natural-born human in this planet.”

“Natural-born?” Kyu questions his choice of words.

The old man continues with his explanation, “Years ago, before all of you are born, humanity suffer wars after wars, and the latest war ends humanity in a way nobody could ever dreamed of; by using biological weapons on every single cities in this world, all due to one side being a sore loser.”

“This place, is where the Living Organism Foundation was founded. We started this foundation, along with this town, as a safe haven for the remaining humanity left.

“But the plague proves its worthiness of being a killing machine, when even after being quarantined, still able to infect those living inside this location. We, the remaining scientists left, were given an authority to do whatever it takes to save the remaining humanity, but we still could not find a way for that.”

“Fortunately, the remaining people are kind enough to give us their seeds. With those, we are able to artificially inseminate and grow human beings. Not only that, but we also genetically engineered all of you to be immune from any possible diseases. If we cannot cure people, we can simply prevent them from happening.”

The old man turns toward them, “This is where things started to get interesting.”

“One of our patrons have told us a way to save this town and the dead outside world altogether. We simply need to continue our research on human genetics even more.”

“Thus, some of you who have shown potential along with our other projects shall stay alive, but those who do not may be used as our own free Guinea pigs, and that includes all of you.”

“The Marks of Hero are special medals that only reacted to those with similar attributes toward them. Each of you has unique attributes linked with certain figures from the myth, history and even known literature. Those who are not compatible, they become the disposable lab rats. Those with similar attributes to another, we picked the weaker one and disposed them off.”

He points out toward Sakura, “Your attributes are linked toward those who are known to have relationship with non-human figures, so we thought we could try and play around with your seed. We have gained so many great things from that experiment alone.”

Without realizing it, he has moved his hands, pointing toward the shadow he came from, “That, is my favorite result.”

From the shadow comes a female with white hair, smiling at them in her black long dress. She also wears the belt around her, and is holding onto a black medal.

Kyu notices her face, as he wonders in confusion, “That’s… Sakura?”

“Correct!” Zeke excitedly responds to him, “Her name is indeed Sakura, but she is not who you think she is. To be exact, she is Sakura’s daughter. She just fond of that name even more. Her father? Owh, just an unknown employee from my company.”

“Of course,” the old man raises his finger, “She is also compatible with one of our medals, and she will give you a demonstration as of now.”

The white-haired lady nods, as she puts on the black medal onto the belt.

**“I call upon thee… Nyarlathotep…”**

_STORY: NECRONOMICON! NYARLATHOTEP: CRAWLING CHAOS!_

Black lines appearing out from her back, with black pieces floating onto her being, giving her an all-black look with red four eyes on her helmet. Some of the body suit pieces are dangling and flowing off from her, making it look like she has a set of tentacles beside her.

“Nya-Nyarlathotep?” Stella wonders, “From HP Lovecraft?”

Zeke laughs maniacally at her, “Oh, you are mistaken. If you think something out of a fiction is useless, wait till you see this.”

The black lady moves her hand forward, and for some reason two black portals appear from her sides. Creatures with three legs, a tentacle for a head with a mouth on it run into the hall, surrounding the five kids.

“This is… What are these!?”

Zeke mutters, turning toward the giant medal, “Our first motive for this experiment is to have the new generation breed out the next generations, repopulated the world with their seeds, but our patrons gave me a better idea, and I am on board with that.”

“Sakura, destroy this thing.”

The black lady nods, with a tentacle from her shadow appears smashing right into the medal.

_POWER GENERATOR BROKEN. THE FACILITY IS ABOUT TO BE EXPLODE IN 10 MINUTES._

Zeke then stares at them, smiling, “Farewell, then.”

A green portal appears near him as he approaches the portal and disappears.

“Damn it!” Stella screams, “This should not be the end of our life!”

She quickly wears her Brynhildr armor, as others with their own as well, now charging and step forward toward the enemies, smashing them as they try to escape.

Unfortunately even if one of the monsters are defeated, more will come from the portals on the side of the black lady.

Kyu stands up, holding onto Sakura as he mutters, “I should be helping too. How about I bring you to the safety?”

_WEAPON: SWORD!_

A blade appears in his hand, running to join others and tries to make a path for her to escape.

“Now!” he screams out as he pushes one of them off for a small gap, “Right there!”

Sakura just stares at the circle.

She is at loss.

“I’m a monster,” she mutters to herself, “I… am a mother of so many monsters… This is not normal…”

Her sight then pulls up, looking straight toward the black lady, as she can feel her smiling at her.

Somehow, her hand moves by itself.

She puts the belt onto the front of her waist, as the belt lets out grey strap around her and attaches itself firmly onto her.

Sakura then puts onto the medal as she mutters, **“I call upon thee… myself…”**

_ULTIMATE: PRESENT! SAKURA ARANZO: HERO SAKURA!_

The white medal slowly carves around, appearing to have a tree design appearing in the middle of it, turning its color pink.

Pink ribbons flying from her back, and so are the pieces of armor that attaches itself onto her person. Her armor looks like a walking cherry blossom, along with a pink and white accent around her. Her helmet has one line across her eyes, like a branch-shaped visor that breaks into half. There are also sharp branches on the side of the head.

She moves her hands around, holding onto a knife in her left hand, and a pickaxe in her right hand, with chains connected between the two.

Sakura steps into a stance and runs forward, smashing the axe onto the black lady as she steps to the side, dodging it. Sakura then goes to stab her with her knife, but the black lady moves away, as a shadow from her feet appears pushing her away.

This doesn’t seems to stop the pink heroine to continue her attack, as the black lady didn’t even try to dodge or fight her back, as if she is mocking her.

“Sakura, let’s go!” Kyu calls out to her, “That thing is about to explode! We should be getting the hell out of here!”

But Sakura did not listen. Instead she continues rampaging across the hall, chasing after the other female.

In her mind, there is no rage, anger, sadness, as if every single emotion has been blocked from ever surfacing. It is as if she becomes cold, and only fights her just because.

“Dammit, Sakura!” Kyu calls out to her, now charging forward, wishing to stop her, but the monsters are surrounding him, and soon… his right arm is no more.

“GRAAAHH!!!”

Stella struck down some of the enemies when she heard the scream. She turns her head around, and she sees her two other friends are on the ground, lifeless.

She turns around, seeing Kyu who is slowly fallen onto the ground, screaming out at him.

“NOO!!!!”

She quickly runs back at him, only to see him being impaled.

At that moment, Sakura stops moving. Her eyes glare to where Kyu lies.

She holds onto her weapons as she screams out in anger, smashing the two blades onto the ground.

A massive tree appears from the floor, filling up the place and soon, everything turns white.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Million years later; a new life has been rewarded]

Sakura just sits on the balcony, sitting all by herself in her room in the huge castle. Her clothes are a purple dress, making her look like a noble of a medieval era. Her hair is longer, and tied up in the form of a bun on her back of the head.

Outside of the room, Kyu and Stella just stand there, near the room, as the former mutters in worry, “She has been like that forever. Even in that place before she is still like that. I’m worried that she is going to be like that forever.”

Stella taps onto his shoulder, “I’m sure she’s going to be fine. What happened back in our world is something she herself could not comprehend. Just give it time, and she will be better.”

At the balcony, Sakura turns her head to the side, seeing the empty chair beside her, only to see a figure in red armor approaches her from the inside, sitting at that chair, “Is something the matter, milady?”

“Something…” she mutters to herself, turning to see her hands, “I want to know… my worth in this place…”

Xxxxxxx

Somewhere else, in a different time and space, the same Sakura is looking cheerful, excitedly asking a weak-looking black-haired male; similar face as the one in red armor from earlier, and a green-haired girl to enter a purple car, as she drives the place away from the big mansion.

On the mansion’s rooftop, a green portal appears with the black lady, losing her transformation, steps onto the floor as she stares at the car.

She smiles wide as she mutters, “Soon, the world shall be ours, papa, mama…”

 

**End chapter?**

**Yes, this is a remake of chapter O4, because I wanted to make a different character for Sakura Aranzo. Though this story is far from over, as there will be two more origin chapter related to this chapter to explain certain details and stuff.**

**Next origin chapter, however, should be about a ninja in an alternate reality. This guy will be the second main male character.**


	6. 2 - The Killing Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shraffe, Leliana and Sakura arrives in a field of Nasu, where a huge stone is in the middle of the field

# The Killing Stone

Within a city mirroring the old noir era somewhere in the Land of the Dead, rain pours over the people who are walking at the sides of the roads, sheltering themselves with umbrellas or coats, giving themselves minimal wetness possible.

Among all of these people is a female figure, walking in a slower pace than others around her.

This figure hides herself inside a grey coat and a grey bowler hat, blending in with the pale buildings and dark-clothing of the passersby.

She finds herself slowly walking into an alleyway, seemingly hasten her pace, close to a jog.

Perhaps she knows of three males following her from behind, thus why she is in a hurry.

Unfortunate that her luck is never there for her, as her feet brings her to the end of the alley, a wall so high only supernatural beings can climb it with no proper equipment.

The female turns herself toward the incoming figures; males in ragged clothes, unsheltered from the tears of the cloud above.

All three of them grin at her, as if they are overjoyed to see her standing before them, almost helpless.

The one in the middle opens up his mouth as soon as he notices her looking around for a way out, “Miss, we can’t help but notice you entering our hideout without our permission. While we loath uninvited guests, we would be willing to give you a pass if you could do us a favor; wallet, phone, jewelry, anything of values; give them to me.”

Their words caught her attention, as the female frowns, turning toward the three slowly.

She takes off her hat, revealing her short, crimson hair with her red orbs staring straight toward the males.

She then pulls off her coat, letting her white shirt, red shorts and black boots be seen before them all. There is a black choker around her neck, looking like a leash instead of an accessory.

The three couldn’t help but blushing at her sight. Her well-endowed body captures their attention for a moment.

The female is then muttering toward the three, “Is money all you can think off right now? Anything else you are going to ask from me?”

The middle stutters, trying to form a word, “W-well, we couldn’t ask for anything else degrading. We are gentlemen after all. We are not like those Black Card clans, who see slavery and prostitution as profitable. We are not a bunch of scumbags.”

“Then what about powers? Don’t you desire that?”

“Powers?” the middle man responds to her, “Please, if powers can feed us street rats without the need to care about what to eat tomorrow, I’ll gladly take that offer. But, I only want to feed those I care for, so if you could be nice and give us your money…”

“Really?” the red-headed female wonders at the three, “If this is how low your desire is, then there is no way for you to survive the next reincarnation.”

With her words ended from her, the three are no longer breathing in this world anymore.

In just a blink, the males before her have been turned into steaks on poles; with the water puddles below them are colored red. “Horns” protruding out from their heads and none of their muscles are moving.

“Disappointing,” she glares at the three figures, as her legs bring her away from the alley, only to stop as before her, two men in suits are standing, blocking the only exit from her current location, along with a limousine that is being parked right behind them.

The door opens up, with a blonde female in mink jacket steps off from the car, greeting the other female, “Long time no see, Scarlet. You are as young as usual.”

The redhead scoffs upon seeing her, “Even the pompous princess has arrived in this world. This place sure has no standard in which people they are taking.”

“Like you can say that about yourself,” the blonde snickers at her comments, “Someone as destructive as you is not someone that can change the world for the better.”

“Unlike you, I have a means to change the world. You should be thankful that I brought all of us here in the first place.”

“I don’t need your help. Even without you, I can still reign over my own world.”

Scarlet points out toward a man she sees inside the car, on the other side of the passenger seat, “With his help, sure. I don’t think you could even be getting married to that husband of yours if not because of him.”

“I don’t really need him. My world, and this world are for me to play with.”

“Keep on telling yourself that, child.”

The man inside the limousine steps off from the car immediately, directing his tone of annoyance toward the two arguing ladies, “Can you two stop arguing!? None of you are here to show off your superiority over others! We are here under the request of Doctor Zed!”

Somewhere, at a building opposite the entrance of the alleyway, a figure in green robe is watching through a binocular at those people.

A male beside her; a man wearing white formal shirt underneath grey vest and a striped fedora on his head, yawns as he  mutters, “Will you tell me who are these people and why are they so important for Doctor Zed?”

The female; a green-haired, neck length-haired female turns and glares toward him, “Not much I know about them. One of them is a delusional heiress of a yakuza family and the other one is a wanted criminal for various crimes. I don’t know who that man is, however. There’s something off about him.”

She then pulls out a notebook, flipping through pages as she continues, “As for why they are important… I do believe Zed needs them for something related to the reboot the Kreetor was talking about.”

The man sighs, leaning onto his foldable chair, “That would be something he would do. He has his own army, yet he is willingly to do anything just to get his point across. Out of all the leaders of the nations in this world, He is the one with the least amount of pride.”

“Uh huh,” the female nods, “Not to mention, he changes his kingdom’s name for like, 104,560339 times already.”

“That is a crime. What was this place’s name starting today?”

She responds to him, while maintaining contact toward those people down there, “I think it’s called The Glorious Land That Is Zed’s Sanctuary.”

“Hmm…” the man is in a thought for a moment, before muttering, “That’s not the worse name I’ve heard.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Standing back-to-back within a forest of bamboo are Shraffe and Leliana, both holding a wooden sword each, firmly gripped with caution.

Their eyes wildly looking all over the place, glaring at each of the trees stuck on the ground. Sometimes their muscles are fidgeting, alerted by every single rustling and breeze all around them.

The silence is finally broken, when a figure appears jumping from one place to another, raining the two with small rocks; painful enough when being used in a group like how this person is right now.

Their attention quickly fades away, as they are trying to take their faces off from those pebbles that may hurt their vital organs on their heads.

They should not have done that, as the figure now jumps forward toward them, smashing them with her palms right on their heads, pushing them off onto the ground.

The figure turns out to be Sakura, and she sighs as her eyes are focusing on the two youngsters laying on the ground, “You guys are still far from being good.”

“Aren’t you a bit too rough?” Leliana pulls herself up, glaring at the purple-haired female, “I didn’t know teaching equals to beating people up in your world.”

Her head now turns toward Shraffe, offering her hand for him.

Shraffe stares at the hand, looking at the fingers as he pushes himself off, back away from the hands while muttering, whispering that only she can hear, or rather able to guess what he said.

“Thank you.”

The girl stares at him, who is not looking at the eyes, instead looking down onto the ground while he pushes himself up, standing straight.

Leliana stands up beside him, not breaking her eye contact onto him. Her mind could not help but wonder why he seems so timid. Ever since she met him in this world, she has never heard him speaking out loud or at least using the acceptable volume when muttering something.

Is he… scared of her?

Sakura did not notice her fixed eye contact, instead responding to her previous statement, “Right now, the Land of the Dead is a place full of people who can only communicate using brute strength. If you guys were to go with the step-by-step training, you won’t be able to catch up to those people.”

“I just… want to find my daughter…” Shraffe mutters, and to that she gives her words.

“If you can’t even defend yourself, there is no guarantee your daughter is going to survive to get through the reboot.”

The green-haired girl is now wondering something, as she now questions her, “What happened if you died in this world before the reboot happens? Aren’t you reincarnated into the next, new world?”

The Aranzo shakes her head, somehow looking solemn, “Those who died in here are considered dead for real. Their souls won’t be reincarnated into the new world at all.”

“Even after death, people still need to fight for themselves?”

“This is no paradise, child,” the violet-haired lady simply walks out of the forest, “This is a purgatory, and you don’t get a free pass in purgatory.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Hello?” Kyu is speaking through a silver mobile phone while standing beside the road in an extravagant city, “Can I speak to Sakura? What do you mean, she’s out? Escorting guests? That doesn’t sounds like her.”

He pauses for a moment, hearing whoever is on the other side of the signal, till he mutters, “Good timing then. I’ll be waiting for her here, if anybody going to ask about me.”

Sighing, he hangs the call he made on turns off his phone, putting the screen to sleep.

Slowly, he mutters to himself, “What was she thinking? She has been staying in the village this whole time. Why would she decide to go out there now?”

His eyes suddenly widen. His head seems to have pieced something together, “Those two guests… could they be…?”

“Having a family problem, Aranzo?”

Kyu turns his head around, looking at the incoming president of Layaria, Nazmi Haris along with a man and a woman beside him.

“What can I help you with, mister President?”

The man in blazer smiles at him, responding to his question, “I do have a simple question for you, but it seems something is troubling you.”

“There is something,” Kyu agrees with him, “But nothing too big. My village is a small one compared to the four nations that ruled this world. We never have something that we could not handle.”

Nazmi gives him a warm smile, “Or is it perhaps you are one of the known one-man armies around the Land of the Dead? I can tell that nobody is willing to try anything too dangerous around someone with your reputation.”

“Please,” Kyu snickers, “I am not someone with the whole country under me. Someone like me is hardly dangerous.”

The man slowly moves toward the three, expressing his wonder toward them, “Will you tell me your question? I believe I have other things to do today.”

“Then I shall be honest with you. This life… it is the second time for you and your wife, right?”

“What of it?”

“The last time you were in here, how did the reboot happen? I mean, what are the processes? How did the Kreetors choose their next successors to create the new worlds?”

Ah, of course, Kyu thought to himself.

Of course people are going to ask him about that, especially when he was there before, seeing someone becoming a Kreetor.

Who doesn’t want to be a god? Pretty sure at least one of the four leaders are going to be interested in that.

The head of Kirana quietly shakes his head, “There wasn’t anything special last time. It happened unannounced, and when you know it, the world starts to shift by itself.”

He lied.

He knows how the selection works, but that information is useless.

Kreetors are not gods; they are humans who lost their lives; their worlds for others to live in.

If they wish for it, they can change their choice of the new Kreetor anytime. They are not committed enough to stick with the same modus operandi for billions and billions of years.

“I see,” Nazmi looks down for a bit, muttering, “Then I believe a war is inevitable then.”

A war?

Yeah… last time there was a war too…

War…

What Sakura is doing right now?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I’m sorry, everybody,” Sakura mumbles, “We have to spend here for tonight.”

She is standing before a black car, glaring straight toward the car, more specifically where the engine is located.

Her eyes are filled with hatred, she is clearly angered with the smoke that comes out of the car.

Or maybe she is mad with whatever that makes the smoke exist?

“Ooh, how much I’ve missed camping within the forest, sleeping around the bonfire, instead of inside a cozy, comfortable room, said no one ever. If only my car can stop functioning in the middle of the road…”

Yup, she’s mad.

Silently, Shraffe turns around, stepping away from there, as he moves close to some trees.

If they were going to sleep in the forest, he might as well check the place beforehand. This way, they can avoid any unwanted guests, like snakes, bears or any insects.

Through some of the trees, he peers into the place, and quickly realizes something that makes him turn back toward the girls, walking close to their leader.

“There’s a village.”

“What did you just said!?” Sakura turns her head toward him, before running past him and checks the same trees.

“You’re right!” she exclaims, “There IS a village!”

From her eyes, she sees something looking like buildings, far from where she stands. Between her and the village is a vast plain field.

Not wasting any time, the three set their feet across the plain field of tall wheat, moving toward the village.

Unfortunately something had to distract them, namely a human-sized rock standing in the middle of the road.

Leliana wonders when she sees this, “There’s something fishy about that rock.”

And now all attentions are toward the stone. Truly, this is a group of easily-distracted people.

Sakura squints at the stone hard enough, as if she can see hidden images on the side of the stone, but obviously she couldn’t, so she turns toward the other female of the group, wondering, “Do you know about this rock?”

The green-haired lady shakes her head, “No, but you can tell that this stone is no ordinary rock. There are way too many decorations on it. It almost looks like a sealed Japanese artifact of some kind.”

Shraffe did not say anything throughout the conversation. He simply stands beside them, looking at the stone, marveled at how much of knots and papers are seen around this huge rock.

In his years spending time in art gallery, he can tell if something is made for art or something else. But he has no idea if this rock is just an art or something different.

_“How long has it been, since I was last visited by a human?”_

“A voice…”

Shraffe moves a step backward. He is surprised by the sudden event that happened just now.

“A voice?” Leliana turns toward him, asking for his confirmation for the word her spoke.

It’s true. He just heard a voice; a female voice coming from the stone.

_“You can hear me?”_

And the stone is speaking to him!

Leliana notices him acting strange, almost as if he is scared over something, but her attention is quickly being pulled away from something big just nearby, “Guys…”

Both Sakura and Shraffe turns to see her, looking at her pointing her hand toward their other side as they comply and turn their heads to see… something.

This something is a giant quad-legged dark beast, standing nearby them as it starts grumbling as they stare at it.

The beast then roars out loud, as if it is angered by their sights and raises one of its front paws, smashing it onto them.

Sakura acts immediately, pushing both of them away from the paw while moving toward the opposite direction, away from the paw.

Yet the moment it touches the field, there is a massive wave that helps push them off and away from the stone.

The beast screams again, as it seems this attack alone did not satisfy it as it starts running toward Shraffe and Leliana,, lunging close to them.

The two just stand there, unable to reach just in time as the beast gets closer toward them.

“Begone, foul beast!”

Before the beast could even reach them, a storm of small white objects fly around it, covering it as it quietly disappears into the ground and slowly moves toward where the shadow of the rock lies.

“Are any of you hurt?”

All three of them turn to see the person who possibly just saved them; a man wearing a white and purple Japanese exorcist clothing, complete with long hat on top of his head.

The man stares at all three of them for a moment, filling the time with silence before bowing at them, “Forgive me for being rude. I am Abe Seimei, an onmyouji currently resides in the town of Nasu.”

“You mean, that village?” Sakura points out toward the village not far from there.

He smiles and nods, “For you, outsiders, our town may have been small enough to even be considered as a village.”

Leliana shakes her head, “Not really. Your place just happens to be looking like old buildings.”

The purple-haired female quickly turns around, looking at them both, “Something I didn’t tell you guys is that any lands from any points of time can appear within this world once the world is considered dead. The towns around there should have originated from ancient Japan, possibly during the Warring States or the Edo period.”

“Wait,” Leliana stands up in shock, “Then, you are the real Abe Seimei? The one that helped Minamoto no Yorimitsu in taking down oni? The ancestor of Abe no Yasuchika, the one that killed off Tamamo no Mae?”

The way she speaks, it sounds like how excited he was when conversing about anime back during his childhood, Shraffe mutters to himself as he stares toward her.

Is she a history lover? Or is there something else she likes that has something to do with the exorcist?

Abe Seimei smiles at her, chuckling, “Thank you for knowing me, though I do not know someone named Abe no Yasuchika. I am the one who sealed off the trickster nine-tailed fox into that stone over there.”

He points his fingers toward the rock behind them, which they quickly jump away in shock, especially Leliana who screams out, “W-wait, that’s the Killing Stone!?”

Her hands instinctively grab Sakura and Shraffe away from that stone, calling out them, “That thing is dangerous! The story told that this stone, before being destroyed into pieces, have been making people ill by just being close to it!”

“True,” Seimei nods in agreement, “And the beast that attacked you before is a remnant of her power, leaking out from the inside of the stone.”

Sakura turns to look at him, “You mean, she is still alive?”

He nods without any words.

Shraffe stares at the rock, and the papers surrounding it, as he hears the voice again.

_“He’s lying. We foxkin do not have such magical powers.”_

Seimei speaks up to the three of them, “If you wish, I could bring you three into the town. The townsfolk may not like outsiders, but they won’t try to hurt you if I am around.”

The man leads the way, with the two girls follow him from behind.

Shraffe, however, has his eyes looking at the stone, before looking away and chases after them.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The three has anonymously agree that wearing their current casual clothing is a bad idea when entering the location that you only see in period stories, so as soon as they get into the town, they quickly buy some haori and wear them over their clothes, while hoping that nobody appears with pitchfork in their hands for wearing shoes.

Of course, when they did this, what they have in mind is a bunch of townsfolk calling them names and outright closing their doors before them, but this is not what they see.

Instead, before them are empty streets, with only a handful of people running around the place.

The only future male mutters, looking around the town, “This looks… grim…”

The onmyouji turns around, bowing at the three, “I am sorry for the pitiful state of this place. It used to have so many people in and out of buildings. Unfortunately ever since we have been transported into this world, all of us are slowly dying.”

“D-dying? Why?” Leliana questions him.

“We do not have medicine in this world. The thing they called ‘medicines’ are a bunch of sharp objects with strange liquid being put into our body. While I understood that this is how people of other worlds treat themselves, the townsfolk do not trust the outsiders with their helps.”

“How are you dying in the first place?” the green-haired girl questions him again.

He responds to her words, “This ‘paradise’, as what the female with the red hair has called before, unfortunately only lets the diseases brought by the Killing Stone spread wild.”

“Yeah!” someone enters the conversation, “That fox bitch is killing us day by day! We should just kill her!”

Another person, this time a female speaks up to the onmyouji, “Seimei-san, please, I’m begging you, kill the fox for us before the fox kills us all!”

“Understood,” Seimei replies toward them all with a smile on his face, “We shall eliminate the demon fox together tomorrow. For now, we should let the seal to drain her powers.”

The people are all bowing toward him, as he greets and apparently encourage them all. It can be seen by how much they all smile toward him after some words from him.

Shraffe and Leliana just stand there, looking at the people as the female wonders in confusion, “What did he meant by ‘transported into here’? Isn’t this is the place for all dead people?”

Sakura overhears them and immediately turns toward her, “Believe it or not, some people believe this is a heaven or an afterlife for them. I have seen so many people confused this place with those two for centuries.”

“Or, he isn’t lying, and they do get transported into this place.”

The three noticed someone behind Shraffe, leaning onto a wall of a building. This man wears a yellow checkered haori over what appears to be costume underneath, but it is hidden well that the three could not tell what he is wearing under there.

This man has black spiky hair and a diagonal scar on his right eye. He also wears a scarf around his neck.

“Who are you?” Shraffe wonders as he responds to him.

“Just a simple passerby.”

He pushes himself up straight as he mutters, “This place is different than the previous Lands of the Dead. It has been only few million years and the reboot has already been announced.”

“Wait, the reboot is here already!?”

Sakura pushes both of her guests to the side, stepping close to him, demanding for answers, “How is that even possible!? Last time it took billions… BILLIONS of years for this world to begin the process of selecting the new Kreetor.”

Leliana expresses her surprise, “It took billions of years??”

The purple-haired Aranzo nods at her, “There are certain numbers of people that this world can carry. Even if you are dead in this world, your soul still carries value here. Each dead world only brings few numbers of people into this place, so people live a long life in here, almost like a heaven. When I was here before, it took almost ten thousand dead worlds for the Kreetor to even announce for the reboot to happen.”

The man snickers at her, “Ten thousand worlds? That is strange. Two years ago the Kreetors stated that this land will only take in ten worlds.”

Sakura stares back at him, “Wha- I never heard of that before!”

“It was announced before. Your husband was there.”

“Wha- but he-“ the wife seems to have noted something, “He didn’t tell me? But why? Why would- We have been married for millions of years…”

The man sighs, “I never understand them, but it seems the Kreetors can definitely see the future if they already know of this.”

Sakura seems to have stepped away from the group, now leaning toward one building all by herself.

Shraffe stares at her for a moment, before looking back at him, “What do you mean they were transported here?”

He signals his head, pointing toward the two, “You two aren’t dead yet, right? I can tell.”

His words regain the attention of the purple-haired female.

The man continues, “You two stepped into green portals to get here, right?”

“Green portals?” Aranzo seems confused, “I have never heard of such thing before… But that’s impossible! You can’t be in this world without dying first!”

“Someone made those portals before; connecting the world of the dead and the worlds of the living. The portals are then spread toward different worlds, pulling people, lands and sometime the whole continents into this land. Some people here are still alive, but once they stepped here, the world just decided that they are being treated as dead like everyone else. Even after millions of years those livings will still not die yet.”

He then moves his head around the town, “This place is the victim of one of those portals. Someone dragged this town out from its world, and puts it into this place instead.”

“But that’s just…”

“If that thing inside that stone over there is indeed dies in her world, she wouldn’t have appears here, still trapped inside that stone. It makes no sense that she gets her punishment repeated even in the afterlife.”

The three now turn their attention toward the stone seen outside of the village/town, with Shraffe looks back at this enigmatic man.

”Wha-where is-“

But he disappears instead, living the three utterly confused.

Is this guy a ninja? There is no trace around him at all, not even a sound of footstep.

Wait, who is he again?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Green portals…

Shraffe could not sleep that night.

It is not because their inn is literally made up of wood and the room has nothing that could be considered as a bed, but because he remembers that his world’s Leliana told him to get into a green portal back in his world.

The green portals seem to have caused this to happen.

Is he really not dead yet? Does that mean there is a chance that his daughter is also here?

Does she already know where that leads? What about the version of Leliana that is with him right now?

Three knocks on the wood is heard coming from outside of the room, with her voice is heard, “Shraffe, are you asleep?”

“N-no!”

With that, the green-haired girl enters the room, looking around as she smiles at him, “Hey, I-I just want to ask something to you…”

“S-sure…”

She enters the room, and immediately Shraffe pushes himself away from her as soon as she gets close to him.

His action once again startled her, and now she shows a clear sign of frustration, “You’re doing it again…”

“D-doing what?”

The girl in the room moves closer to him, seeing the man in the room to steps away from her once again.

“There!” she speaks out loud to him, “Ever since I’m here, you have been avoiding me! When we were training before, you didn’t take my hand when I offer a help to you. Just now you couldn’t even sit close to me! Do you hate me that much!? Or have me from your world ever hurt you or anything!?”

“I-“ Shraffe seems to have taken aback from her words, but he just looks away, mumbling, “I don’t hate you… I just…”

“You just what!?”

“I… we shouldn’t be close.”

Ending his words, he pushes himself far away from her, now standing close to where the window is, “My wife will hurt you if you ever get close to me…”

“Your wife…” Leliana seems to be face palming herself internally, looking at her sighing, “Of course you won’t be comfortable with another girl around. You must have loved your wife so much…”

“I… don’t…”

“Eh?”

Now, his words bring her attention back to him.

But something else manages to capture her eyes, as she now moving up toward the window, making him run away from her as she ignores him, instead looking outside of the window.

Her eyes see a figure slowly moving out from the town toward where the rock is, with her eyes quickly recognizes the figure, “Abe no Seimei? What is he doing right now?”

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Seimei walks toward where the stone is, as he takes a look at the papers and the decorations around the stone before smiling wide and walks away from there.

Moments later, Leliana and Shraffe stand up, out from the wheat with the green-haired girl dusts off the dirt from her body as she looks around the place, “Can’t believe it’s actually works.”

Shraffe mutters at his words, “It’s dark. Nobody could see us clearly.”

“I guess that is correct.”

The girl now moves slowly toward the rock, as she takes a look at the rock for a moment, before turning back toward him, “I wonder what he is doing there?”

Shraffe simply shakes his head, unable to even guess the answer for that question.

“Say, do you know about Hybrids?” the girl suddenly springs another question to him.

He shakes his head again.

Leliana explains to him, “Back in my world, I’ve learned that there are such things as people with animalistic features or people that can turn into animals, calling themselves as Hybrids. It is regarded as a different race instead of different species, even though during my time, Hybrids are still in hiding from all humans.”

She continues, “All of the shape shifters in the folklore and stories; all of them appear to have been ancient interpretation of Hybrids. People with wolves-like features are being called as werewolves; Bats are vampires and so on. Even myths like Medusa or Kiyohime are said to have been females turning into snakes, and people of their time see that as a sign of threat and regarding them as such.”

Shraffe moves his head, looking at the stone, “Are you saying, Tamamo no Mae is a fox Hybrid, instead of a trickster demon fox?”

_“Finally, someone who knows our lineage.”_

It’s the voice again.

_“I am but a fox person, living in our own village hidden inside the jungle of Nihon. But people are constantly hunting us, with the excuse of hunting demons and youkai.”_

_“I was a child when my family was murdered before me, and I fled the village, soon finding myself being adopted by a pair of husband and wife, even being given a name of Mizukume. They know who I am, yet they treat me as their own child.”_

_“But living in Nihon as a female is truly harsh, especially for someone like me who were raised by a poor family. I couldn’t remember when, but I eventually join the life of red-light district, making my name as a high-paying prostitute.”_

_“Emperor Toba found me, and he fall for me, making me his concubine. I do love him, and I am thankful for what he did to me; changing my life forever.”_

_“But I may have been greedy in my life. I thought I could live inside the castle forever, surrounded with wealth no man could imagine. It is definitely a life better than selling my body to lecherous men, or being hunted down for having an extra set of ears.”_

_“Unfortunately the world quickly reminds me of who I am in this world. A fox like me should never be dreaming of becoming a human.”_

_“Abe no Seimei found me, and forced me to show my true nature. Everyone chases me away, and continue to chase after me, restarting the hunt they had against my people. I was chased and chased, till I found myself here in Nasu.”_

_“I already lose my strength, and my will to survive, and they took that advantage. He sealed me inside this stone, and drains me slowly, torturing me for not being a human.”_

_“Perhaps it is my fault for forgetting who I really am…”_

At the end of the lament, he hears sobbing coming from the stone.

“Are you… scared of dying?”

The green-haired girl pulls her head up toward him, “Are you speaking to me?”

He ignores her, and keeps on staring at the stone, “Do you want to be free?”

_“Free? Me? Free isn’t a word suitable for the likes of me. I will forever be chased by the humans as long I live. Death is a mercy for me.”_

“That’s just stupid…”

Leliana is now glaring at him, “Who are you talking to?”

He still ignores her, and still speaking to the stone, “Back then people are idiots, and people believed everything is dangerous.”

“People of my time scared of nothing. Strange things will be shrugged as illusion for them. If they see a foxgirl, they will simply think it was just someone wearing a costume and nothing harmless.”

_“I see. I would love to be in that time of yours. But it doesn’t matter. It won’t cleanse my sins of greed away.”_

“For wanting to live a better life, you were tortured? I know that feeling all too well…”

Shraffe moves his hand, close to where the papers are, grabbing their sides before ripping them off, one by one.

Leliana is still staring at him, and now she mutters toward him, “Dude, I don’t think you should do that…”

Jagged lines of light appears around stone, forming from different sides toward the center, intertwining onto each other with the rock cracks open, dissolving into dusts and particles.

Something that aren’t dusts before them is a female; a brown-haired female, with hair tied up into two small tails behind her, and her attire is black kimono or mofuku, used to mourn the deaths of someone.

While looking like the two before her, what sets her apart are her two animal ears and a big bushy tail on her rear, flailing around behind her.

“This is… Tamamo no Mae?” the green-haired woman wonders as she sets her sight on her, “She doesn’t look as dangerous as how the folklore described her.”

The newly-appeared female before them stares at both of them, bewildered before looking down, realizing something. Her eyes move from her hands, before her body, and behind her as she sees her tail. Her hands than confirms the existence of her ears.

“I’m… free? Did you really… released me?”

Shraffe stares at her solemnly, muttering, “If the only sins you are carrying is your greed, than you shouldn’t share your punishment with someone who actually hurt others.”

“Wh-what have you done!?”

The three now turns to their side, looking straight to where the village is, but now they instead sees a group of people, along with the astrologist himself standing not too far from them.

One of the villagers screams out with fear filling his adrenaline, “We’re doom! The demon fox has been released from its containment!”

Seimei speaks out loud toward the two visitors, “What are you doing!? Why have you unsealed the very being that threatens this village!?”

“I-“ Tamamo tries to form a word, “I didn’t do anything… I just want to live… Why can’t any of you live me alone?”

The exorcist steps forward, “A demon like you should never live in human’s world.”

“That’s rude!” Leliana screams out at him, “I may not know anything, but from the look of it, she is a half-fox, half-human. Calling her a demon for her features is the same as being a racist! You are discriminating her for looking different than all of you!”

The man did not take her words too well, turn and glare at her, “Woman, do you not know of her crime for killing Emperor Toba? Our emperor did not suffer any sickness and yet he suddenly falls ill with no explanation whatsoever!”

“I did not kill Your Majesty…” the foxgirl once again tries to defend herself, “Months before his sickness appears, he has once complaint of having some form of lump inside his body. He tries so many medicines but none of them works.”

“That’s cancer,” Shraffe mutters, “It’s a lump of cell appears inside your body. You cannot cure cancer with only liquids.”

One of the villagers sounds pissed, “Then, are you saying we are supposed to take those medicines from the outside!? Do we have to stab ourselves like those strange people!? Perhaps you are talking about their act of cutting their own people in the name of medicine!?”

Shraffe now turns toward Tamamo, muttering toward her, “Don’t you see? These people are scared of everything. They will blame everything for something they do not understand.”

“But…”

“Stay with us, then,” Leliana mutters, “I really have no idea what happened, but I can’t see you as someone dangerous no matter what. If you are looking for a new home, you can do that with us. We both are looking for something important. One more person with similar intentions won’t hurt us.”

The foxgirl stares at her, as she slowly turns toward him. Her eyes set upon the villagers next, and the astrologist, before looking back at the two near her.

She smiles at them, bowing, “Thank you for accepting me…”

Seimei scoffs out loud, taking all attention away from her.

“Seimei-san… you are…”

The villagers slowly back away from the exorcist, fearing of something far worse.

Shraffe and Leliana is shock to see him, as he is no longer what he claims to be.

Abe no Seimei is no longer a human before them, but he now has a tail behind him, along with beastly ears and claws on his hands.

He grins at them with his slit, yellow pupils, “Someone like you, who is born not among the humans… do you think you are allowed to stay alive?”

Shraffe mutters in confusion, “Why is he… looks like Tamamo?”

Leliana is in shock before hearing his words and responds to him, “The myth stated that Abe no Seimei was born from a human male and a female kitsune. That could’ve meant that he is also a Hybrid.”

“Yes,” Seimei responds to her words, “I was born thanks to that cursed demonic woman. I had to hide my identity to almost everyone I know, while those demons live carefree among themselves without the need to feel fear.”

“And you hunt them all down, all because you are jealous of them?” Shraffe seems confused, “Is that really all?”

“You won’t understand me even if I lecture you both!”

He pulls out papers out from his person, releasing creatures made up of papers that fly toward them, slowly forming into the black beast the saw before.

Leliana receives another dose of surprised, “That thing was your shikigami!?”

“I had to make sure no human tries to kill the demon by themselves. Some of them are idiots who can only think with their hands. Releasing the demon from her captive will only bring despair onto them.”

Shraffe pulls his hand up, realizing for a moment that his brace already appears around his wrist, but then he gets distracted when the foxgirl steps before him, close toward the beast.

“Tamamo!” he calls out for her.

Tamamo turns toward him, smiling at him, “Let me show you my gratitude for saving me.”

She brings her hand up high, with her sleeve falls off, showing her bare left arm with a silver bracelet shines around her wrist.

The bracelet seems to have something round in the middle of it, as an insignia of a fox shows up like a hologram for a second there.

Her body turns orange, and slowly turning into what appears to be a feminine armor around her, along with robot fox-like helmet with straight black visor. Her tail appears to be intact.

“I know that form!” Leliana calls out with Shraffe turning toward her, expecting her to answer his confusion, “During my training, I’ve heard that some of the Hybrid can tap into a power within them that can bring out their animal-like form. They can either fully turn into their animal self or, for stronger ones, combine both animal and human self into a different appearance altogether.”

Tamamo stands low, looking like a beast ready to pounce onto the black beast as she jumps high toward the beast, scratching it with her long claws repeatedly.

The beast is taken aback before roaring out and throws her off, but she lands perfectly with her two legs and runs fast, keep on striking down the beast.

“We should help her,” Shraffe mutters, earning a nod from his female childhood friend.

**“Zero Change!”**

Now wearing their battle forms, they run forward as they pull their weapons out of nowhere, joining the skirmish alongside the orange fox.

Tamamo is startled by them, looking around and noticing her two saviors are no longer standing where they were before. She turns back and continues attacking the enemies.

“Th-they are demons as well!!”

“Seimei-san, strike them down, now! Or this village will suffer from their wrath!”

“What are you talking about!? Seimei-san is a demon as well! Why would he hurt his own kind!?”

Seimei hears them, now glaring toward the villagers.

The coward figures behind him slowly back away, far from him as possible while holding onto anything in their hands that they considered as weapons.

Seimei sighs at them, walking away from there.

Back to the fight, Leliana grabs onto what appears to be a crossbow out of a hole near her and starts aiming toward the beast, shooting it right on its feet.

Shraffe goes and slashes the same feet, pinning the beast onto the ground.

Tamamo now lands before the beast’s face, as her claws glow red. She then goes to slash it one last time, somehow having red wave created by the slash that goes through the beast.

The black creature explodes into shredded papers, raining down onto the Nasu field, and the three are no longer there.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shraffe, Leliana and Tamamo are running out from the forest, with the green-haired girl stops as she mutters, “Should we really leave them be?”

“They don’t like us. It is the least that we can do.”

“But they are still in pain.”

“If they wish to blame everything onto the mystic and refuse to accept the changes in their lives, they shouldn’t even be complaining for their death.”

A horn is heard and before them, a car appears with Sakura as the driver.

She lowers the window as she mutters, “From the looks of it, I can tell that you guys did something in the village, right?”

“What are you doing here late at night?”

Sakura responds to the green-haired lady’s question, “I was trying to fix my car. I forgot that this car runs on mana, so all I need is to infuse my mana into this car.”

“Mana?” the two is confused.

Tamamo just stares at the car, as she now looks into the car, “What kind of beast is this? Never have I seen this in my whole life.”

Looking at her, the purple-haired lady glares at the two, “Seriously? Another passenger?”

She then shrugs, signaling the three to enter car, with all three of them sitting in the back.

The driver questions them, “Shouldn’t one of you sit on the front seat?”

Shraffe looks hesitant, “I…”

Leliana mutters, “I want to ask him something, and it’s private.”

Tamamo looks at both of them, before pulling her arm and takes a look at her bracelet.

Slowly, she turns into a fox, now putting herself onto Shraffe’s lap, lying on him. A coy sound is heard coming from her, with the fox closes her eyes.

The driver shrugs again as she pulls onto the handbrake, “I guess we better continues our journey then.”

And so the group moves forward, leaving the town of Nasu in their ignorance.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leliana takes a look at the outside, seeing how the sun has started to appear.

She now turns toward Shraffe, who is ruffling the fox’s fur.

She moves closer to him, trying to whisper to him, “What you told Tamamo before… I have the feeling you’ve done something you couldn’t forgive yourself with. Does it have anything to do with you refusing to get close to me?”

Shraffe stares at her, not wanting to answer but her eyes seem adamant to hear it from him.

He couldn’t handle that kind of pressure, and as expected he spills the bean.

“My wife… she is the leader of an extreme yakuza group. She is someone who is easily offended by anyone, especially females. She… has a peculiar way of torturing them…”

“How peculiar is…”

He quickly interrupts her, “She… She forced me… She forced to… to hurt all the women she hated… It’s…”

Tears.

“It hurts…”

Leliana couldn’t help but gasps, seeing him crying as if he is trying to hold himself back from doing so. He cries so little the sobs are basically unheard of.

Sakura hears him, and she seems petrified. Her lips slowly moving, muttering with no sound, but if there is, it sounds as, “No way. That was him? He is… my descendant?”

 

**End chapter.**

**No, that is not Fate’s Tamamo no Mae. Kinoko Nasu did not own this character. She also did not fight with mirrors, magic and castration fist.**

**Next: We shall stay away from Shraffe and co. for a moment and speaks about the other characters in this world. The Red King decides to wage a war against Zed, but he starts his campaign on a city where Sarah is located.**


	7. 3 - Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The countdown begins

# Invasion

Within a red-colored castle, a group of red-wearing people are sitting around a huge round table, including the Red King himself.

One of the red people speaks up, breaking the silence among them all, “What are we supposed to do now? We have been spending our time quite a while in this place, and now the Kreetors have announced to kill off everything we have worked on so far!”

“Shut up, Sir Lancelot,” another man in red responds to him, “Our king knows what we are going to do next. We are waiting for his responds, after all.”

Red King snickers, hearing the two bickering.

A female in red wonders over something, “Didn’t the Kreetor stated that one of the people are going to be selected as the new Kreetor for this new world?”

“Yeah,” Lancelot screams once again, “But we don’t know who that person would be, or if they have already been chosen!?”

The female mutters, “It is not without criteria, right? They don’t pick randomly.”

“That’s what he said,” another female in red nods, “But we really don’t know how. Is it by the species? The world of origin? Deeds? It is but a mystery.”

The Red King snickers once again, as he finally opens up his mouth, “Does it really matter?”

All eyes are now toward him as he stands up, facing them all, “We are given the second chance, and yet we are expecting the third chance to come by? You guys are a bunch of disappointment.”

“This is the world where only strong people can live in. Who cares what the new world is going to be!? Who cares who those blasted fake gods are going to choose? What matters is that we are getting everything we wanted in this world. The fact that this world is ending means it is time for us to finish off what we started! We will be taking over all of this world before we are finally dead!”

“Speaking like a true conqueror,” one of them nods in agreement, “Then, where shall we attack next?”

“Where else!?” the Red King screams out loud, “We are going to kill Zed and everything evil in his kingdom!”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The ninja-like dude poof into existence and is now standing within a different place; on top of a building, than he was previously.

The man grabs his yellow-checkered haori and takes it off from him, now showing himself wearing a black leather suit with yellow lines on it instead.

He looks around him, looking at a bunch of tall buildings; homes called flats stacked side by side.

“There you are!” a voice calls out to him as he turns around.

A man with a fedora hat on his head greets him, waving at him, “How’s your journey, Ferhad?”

“Interesting,” the ninja mutters without a smile on his face, “I get to see a Hybrid’s transformation power for the first time.”

“Hybrid? Transformation?” the fedora man wonders at his words, “You don’t talk about their armored form, right?”

The ninja nods, as the fedora man looks really bewildered, “Wait, that’s really rare! Only few among them that is capable of using an armored form. They have to be able to resist their beastly nature to create a perfect harmony between the two appearances they have.”

“Sho, Ferhad, what are you two doing exactly?”

The two males now turn their heads around, looking at a female with green hair, hiding her face within a robe, walking toward them.

The fedora man, Sho simply shrugs, “It’s nothing.”

Ferhad mutters out loud, “I just told Sho about my mission.”

The girl nods, accepting their statements, “I see. Then, have you told her?”

Ferhad nods again, “She didn’t take it well.”

The girl in robe sighs, “I’ve told boss so many times; don’t hide his work from his wife. It’s his fault if she is going to chew him for that.”

“But boss told us many times that his wife is unstable,” Sho mutters, “That his wife is a ticking time bomb.”

“He’s not a good husband, isn’t he?”

Ferhad closes his eyes, as he walks away from there, “I’ll be reporting to the boss.”

He then walks through a door, as he enters an elevator.

He remembers his destination as the third floor of the five-storied building as he presses onto the button.

The box moves downward toward the designated floor, but not before stopping on the fourth floor, as a man enters the box, pressing the button to the first floor.

The man notices him as he speaks up to him, “Hey, Ferhad. Got back from your mission?”

“Yeah. What about you?”

The man sighs all of the sudden, mumbling to himself, “Disaster. It is really hard to get into the meeting room when you are only a normal soldier-in-disguise. Red King do not let anybody gets in there except his most trusted knights. I am definitely not built for stealth.”

“How about set up a bug in there beforehand?”

The man suddenly looks upward with a smug on his face, “A samurai will never rely on technology!”

The ninja stares toward the man for a moment, before voicing his opinion, “Are you sure it is not because you are bad with technology?”

“Shut up!” the man looks angered by his comment, “A samurai isn’t one that uses technology! A samurai can fight without the need of one! It is in the code of Bushido!”

“I think you are mistaking the samurai code as a religious text and a how-to guideline, instead of a code of honor among them. You should know that from what I learned about your world, the real samurai are noble assholes who only care about themselves.”

“You’re wrong!” the man screams out once more, “Samurai is the epitome of honorable warriors! They fight with chivalry, for the justice of all mankind!”

Ferhad sighs, mumbling as a response, “I guess so, but that really has nothing to do with you not using a technology.”

“There is no such thing as ‘know how to use something strange coming from western’ stated in that code!”

Ferhad wishes to smack his palm with his forehead. He has no idea why he indulges himself with this otaku’s rant about his idealized version of samurai.

Let’s hope he didn’t get to medieval Japan one day. One could only wonder how he will react to the real world counterpart of the samurai.

The door opens up, as both men now walks toward the door at the opposite end of the elevator, and knocks onto the door.

“Come in.”

He opens the door, as the two enters a living room on the other side of the door, with Kyu and a blonde female sitting on couches, facing one another.

“Boss,” the samurai fanboy salutes him, “We’ve arrived from our mission and here to report.”

Ferhad glares at him as he hits him on the ribs before speaking toward the man on the couch, “We’re sorry for the intrusion. We didn’t know you have a guest right now. We can come back later.”

Kyu smiles at him, muttering, “No need. She is simply reporting to me what is occurring in Layaria as of now.”

The female relaxes herself on the couch, “There is really nothing much happened in there. Layaria remains passive within its own kingdom.”

Kyu nods as he continues, “And Titanius has decided to increase its military strength, but so far nothing new from them.”

The female sighs, “In the meantime, we still could not determine the origin of those green portals. There are traces of them whenever they appear in this world, but the traces did not lead them to anywhere. It is as if the creators or the perpetrators are now anywhere in this world.”

“That is quite impossible,” Kyu responds to her, “The Land of the Dead is off limit to any living things. Outside from those portals, I could not think any way for anybody to appear in here.”

The man suddenly turns toward the two other men standing at the door as he calls out to them, “Forgive me. This here is a friend of mine back when we were still alive; her name is Stella Eisen.”

“Hello!” she cheerfully waves at them both.

Kyu speaks toward them again, “So, is there anything for you to report?”

Ferhad nods, “Your wife continues her journey to the Capital, along with her two guests. They have acquired a companion fox Hybrid named Tamamo no Mae during their stay in Nasu. As of now, they are still going to the Capital.”

“That’s good,” a smile appears on the boss’s face, “Let’s hope we can finish this without her knowing.”

His eyes move toward the samurai lover, “What about you, Sam? Is there anything to talk about Crimson Luxuria?”

“Yeah,” Sam responds to him, “It appears that the Red King has decided to finally attack Zed’s Sanctuary or whatever he called his nation right now.”

Silence suddenly fills the room, with Stella wonders something, “Doesn’t that mean he is going to attack this place first?”

“Most likely, yeah.”

Kyu then stands up in a hurry, “We should be getting out of here then. How long till he reaches here?”

“It won’t be that long, I guess? This place is at the border between the two nations, after all.”

Kyu turns toward both Ferhad and Stella, “You two, call out some others around here and defend the people from these place. We’ll tell you when to retreat.”

He then moves toward Sam, “You and I are going to set this place up. We are taking this building down. We are NOT sharing any bits of information with them, understand?”

All three of them nod, running out of that room as far as they could.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scarlet is now being led into the biggest building in this place, following the pompous brat and her bodyguard deep into this place.

She is quite surprised how this place is designed; from the outside the building is nothing more than a housing apartment, taller than others, but the inside shows it as a castle with machineries she could never identify, nor she is bothered to do so.

She keeps following her, as they finally steps before a round table.

Scarlet’s scarlet eyes wildly look all over the place, staring at those figures around the tables. There are quite a number of people around that piece of wood, and each of them glares at the three as if they are expecting them.

The brat girl snickers at the sight of the group, “Owh, all the party members are here? This is quite a rare sight to see.”

A blue-haired man grins at her, “Why, today is a special occasion, of course. As a member of Dimen-gard, how can I say no to this?”

A man in black mask covering the upper part of his face mutters toward them, “You three should sit. There is no need to waste our time for your petty argument.”

Scarlet simply listens to him, as she goes toward an empty seat, sitting among those people.

She then turns to her right, looking at a white-haired female smiling at her, “You must be the new gal they are talking about? Your reputation is quite high compared to others in here.”

The red-haired lady simply ignores her, looking somewhere else away from there.

She then sees the last person on the table; a man in bright red vest over his bright green, polka dot sweater, flipping through a book in his hand.

The man pulls his head up, quickly speaks up with an amused look, “Ah, there it is; our esteemed leader.”

Before them, Zed enters the room, smiling toward all of them as he speaks out toward all figures in the room, “Ah, it is good to finally see my comrades from the Dimen-gard. How are you today?”

“Alive and kicking,” the man in the failed fashion statement, “Ironically.”

Cecilia quickly corrects him, “Hey, not everyone has the time to be dead.”

“Ain’t that a pity,” the man snickers at her, “Living here after dead means you have a potential to break even the boundary of the living and the dead. Were you not strong enough to stay alive after being dead?”

“Perhaps,” the princess replies to him, “Or perhaps I simply have no time to meet your bullshit philosophical expectation.”

Zed laughs out loud, alarming those on the table, “AH~! Youth; how I missed that concept.”

“Concept?” the blue-haired man raises one eyebrow toward him, “Man, your words are very confusing.”

The masked man looks annoyed, “Are we really going to waste more time right now?”

Zed slowly stops laughing, now taking a deep breath before speaking up, “Fine. I am here, calling out to you all, is to tell you that the Kreetors have decided to finally reboot this world and all of its citizens into a new world.”

“Finally!” the blue-haired man seems excited, “I’ve been waiting for that to happen in forever!”

Zed continues, “The Kreetors have expectedly decided not to tell us of their way of picking the next Kreetor to rebuild this new world, but, we all know how they really picked their poison, aren’t we?”

The white-haired female grins, muttering, “The purest of heart, the courageous among the flesh or the kindest of men; it is always have to be among these three, right?”

“That’s still too vague,” Cecilia argues, “Everybody can fill in those requirements. Heck, all of us already filled one of them.”

The blue-haired man smirks, “I don’t remember being kind.”

Cecilia glares at him, “I hope stupidity is one of the criteria of rejecting Kreetor candidates.”

“Calm down, friends,” Zed quickly puts his hands up high, “There is always a way to rig the result. This is where our roles are being fulfilled.”

“A secret weapon,” he continues, “Each of us has one of the keys, and this will be an ultimate weapon to turn the table against those Kreetors, and get the world we all deserved.”

Scarlet has been silent throughout the meeting. Her eyes could not stop staring at the professor. She feels something very strange about him; something she could not decipher fully.

She knows, however, that this man is a bad news for both sides, or at least for her.

Her attention snaps when Cecilia tries to speak to her, “Isn’t it great, Scarlet? We can finally have our world back. I can my husband and my freedom and you can have your boy toy. Each of us can finally be freed from everything that has been weighted us down.”

Scarlet ignores her words, looking toward the other members, and she sees all of them seem excited in their own way.

It seems everyone wants to create a world for their own.

Zed continues with his words, “Now, the only thing we need to do is wage chaos on all lives. It may sounds painful for some… owh, who am I kidding? None of us are heroes.”

A knock is heard as a silver-haired man runs into the meeting room.

Zed doesn’t seem to like his appearance in there, “What are you doing here, son? We are having a meeting right now.”

“Father!” the man calls out to him, “The town at the border; Crimson Luxuria is attacking it!”

“Ah, that place? It’s about time the Red King attacks us. He has been having a massive beef against us.”

The young man looks startled. His eyes widen in disbelief, “F-Father… that town… there are people in there… your people! How do you take this news calmly!?”

Zed snickers at his words, “Kid, this is what a war is all about. Having a moment of weakness is something a leader of a country should have.”

“But… you were smiling!”

“I smiled because our enemy finally has a ball to break the truce between nations. He subsequently started a war that has been lying dormant for tens of years.”

The professor turns around toward those people on the desk, calling out to them, “So, who among us should go and stop that brat of a king?”

Cecilia stands up, pointing toward the man beside her, “How about my boy over here? He alone can defeat those poor people. I am confident that he can even match that amateurish king.”

The blue-haired man stands up, speaking out loud, “I’ll join you for this. I have been itching for a fight!”

The three figure walk out of the room, as Scarlet stands up and follows those three.

The white-haired lady questions her, “What about you, new kid? Are you going to help them?”

The red-haired girl glares at her, “No, I’ll just observe them.”

The silver-haired young man stares at those three, before turning toward Zed, “Father, I’ll be at the frontline! I don’t care what you said, but I’ll protect my people with even an inch of my life!”

He runs out of there, following them all.

Zed sighs, mumbling to himself quietly, “Stupid kid. This world won’t be kind to you.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Within that small town, all people are slowly evacuating out of there, walking in a long straight line toward one direction; away from the incoming army.

Ferhad stares toward them all on top one of the buildings, speaking to himself, “They are not rushing, but they are taking their sweet time moving. The Crimson Luxurian army will be reaching them in no time.”

Sho appears beside him, “That is why we are here. Boss has already anticipated them to come rushing here, thus why he turned this town as a temporary HQ for us all. He wishes for a lot of the members of the organization to show up here frequently so that these same people are available to help these poor townsfolk.”

The ninja pulls himself up, glaring toward the army, “Can we even take this army by ourselves? Even with all of us at once, we aren’t that many compared to other groups.”

“Don’t worry,” Sho cheers him up, “This is Zed’s territory. He should have a soldier stationed here somewhere.”

“Let’s hope he does, because I barely seen any of them around here somewhere.”

He walks toward where the outside is as he is about to jump toward the other building.

Before that, however, he noticed a group of people down there not joining with others in escaping. Instead they simply stand around there, hanging around as if nothing is about to happen.

Ferhad simply shrugs. He has seen so many people giving up on life in this nearly-immortal life. The news about the reboot is still unknown to the masses after all.

He jumps high, reaching onto the other buildings before him as he rushes toward the battlefield. Sho is riding his bike on the rooftops, also jumping between buildings like him.

The two eventually reach down safely onto the ground, as he approaches Stella, who stands alongside a small group of people.

The ninja looks around the place, realizing something very strange about this place, “Where are Zed’s soldiers?”

The blonde girl shakes her head, “There isn’t any.”

“What!?” Sho sounds shocked, “Is he going to let this place being attacked!?”

Stella simply shrugs. It seems she could not provide the answer for both of them.

Ferhad clicks his tongue as he pulls out a rectangular object with a tubular slot, “I guess we have to do it ourselves for now. We’ll talk about Zed’s situation later.”

The blonde woman nods, “For now we should only focus on defending this place. There are still people in the town, right?”

Sho sighs, taking out a box and what seems to be a black USB, “Zeroic Hero is an organization that helps people in the shadow. That should be our priority, right?”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Red King, leading his army of one thousand foot soldiers, is sitting on a huge wheeled palanquin as the army slowly marches through the field.

He sees the town before him getting closer and looks around the outside of it.

His eyes stop and staring toward the entrance of the town. He then snickers toward the man beside him, “Arthur, are those really the only army Zed has here? This skirmish is going to be disappointing.”

The man beside him; a blonde in red armor simply mutters, “Perhaps he has something in mind. He is a shrewd man, after all.”

“Of course…” the Red King chuckles, “OF COURSE! Zed is indeed a piece of work! There is no way he is going down without a fight! He must have put a trap within there!”

The man now stands up, as he pulls out his sword and raises it upward for all to see, “Crimson Luxuria, this will be our first step in eliminating those who threatens our lives! Remember that it is Zed who initiates the war long ago! It is him who started the chaos and darkness that wretched within your hearts for so long! From today onward, we will kill the man who turned this paradise into hell! Onward, my people, and toward victory we fight!”

Roars are heard, signifying the rises in morality among them, with their weapons are raised to heed the call of encouragement by their king.

Arthur pulls out his own sword; a white sword with golden ornament as he screams, “Crimson Luxuria, charge!”

The red soldiers charge forward, running toward the town.

From inside the town, a large group of inhuman looking creatures; some on foot and some flies, moving out of the town, startling both sides.

“Why am I forgetting this!?” the Red King screams, jumping down from the palanquin, “This is Zed’s usual tactics! He will always deploy his monsters onto us!”

“Generals!” the king screams, showing off a bracelet with red gem around his wrist, “I am permitting you to use your full strength! Do not hold back against these barbaric creatures!”

Voices are heard coming from the bracelet, _“Yes, Your Majesty!”_

**“Savior Release!”**

His body is then being bath inside a red pillar that reaches the sky, as he is left wearing a red armor, a mix between a warrior, a noble and regalia. His head appears to have a crown, with yellow eyes underneath it.

A huge armored man, sitting on a feral fox and holding onto a sword in seen as a silhouette, located right behind him.

At the same time, pillars of red lights are all over the battlefield, as each of those inside the same pillars are no wearing their own battle outfits.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Wh-where were these creatures came from!?” Sho is one of those who are startled.

Stella, instead, ignores them as she screams out, “It doesn’t matter; it makes out job easier! Cover the entrance! Do not let any of the red soldiers get into the town!”

She puts a belt around her waist and puts on a medal onto the middle of the belt, screaming once again, **“I call thee… Brynhildr!”**

_MYTH: VOLSUNG SAGA! BRYNHILDR: VALKYRIE OF ASGARD!_

Golden ribbons encircling her with pieces of armor attaching themselves onto her, giving her the appearance of a knight from Norse mythology. Her helmet has wings on the side with her eyes are now monochrome.

Sho presses a button on the box as a slot opens up on the side. He then pushes his USB into said box, **“Commencing mission!”**

_AGENT JOKER: READY!_

He puts the box onto the right side of his waist, which creates a strap of belt of his own. The black bike on his side breaks apart, reassembling itself as his bulky bike-themed armored costume. His helmet is an armored version of a normal biker helmet.

Ferhad wears the rectangular object around his waist, turning into his belt as he puts a kunai into the slot on his belt before pressing the slot inside. The side of the front belt lights up with yellow light.

He makes three hand seals and screams out, **“Ninpou: Henkei no Jutsu!”**

The belt releases a smoke only around his body, with the smoke harden in place and dissolves into dust and disappears.

Ferhad now wears a sleek grey ninja-themed armored costume with yellow lines around him. His helmet is nothing but a head with small black slit as a visor.

Alongside these three heroes; Hero Brynhildr, Agent Joker and Ninja Kage are different heroes with variety of costumes worn by them after going through their own transformation sequences.

Stella pulls out her sword, with wings appearing behind her as she screams, “Incoming!”

True to her words, some of the red soldiers are already moving past the monsters and are now reaching toward the entrance into the town.

She flies first toward some of them, with others running toward the soldiers, following her and engaging on a fight.

Stella reaches the first soldier as she stabs her sword right into his shoulder as she kicks him off, turning her attention toward the soldier on her side, giving him repeated slashes few times before engaging on the one on her back.

Missiles are shot out of Sho’s right hand, bombing some of the soldiers. The one that did not get hit are trying to hit him, but the armor opens up as Sho jumps out of the bulky armor, showing his smaller biker-based costume while grabbing the bike’s handle and pushes the two bars together, creating a black laser blade between them.

He smashes his blade onto the man, slashing him few times and pushes him off before dodging a soldier jumping onto him. The man ends up hitting the bike armor instead, but ends up realizing that the armor is actually alive.

The armor grabs him and throws him as its left hand fires bullets rapidly onto him.

Arthur, wearing his white and red knight armor, is among the frontline as he found himself striking his sword right toward Ferhad, who is already throwing the blunt end of his kusarigama, or chain-and-sickle combination weapon onto one of the foot soldier.

The ninja notices of the knight reaching him and puts up his chain to defend himself against the blade.

Ferhad pushes him to the side and throws the chain around the blade and pulls it off from the knight’s hand.

Arthur snickers, clapping his hands together as he screams, “Good strategy, warrior, but that is but a mere sword. This armor I am wearing is my real weapon.”

With that, the sword he loses disappears, returning back into his hand as a spear appears in another hand.

Ferhad holds onto his sickle tight with the two stare toward each other, preparing to strike at any opportune moment.

“How about let me have that fun as well!?”

Both of them turn their heads to the side, seeing a blue-haired man charge straight toward them, separating them with a stab of a spear onto the ground.

He then pulls the spear, twirls it around as he screams, “Humor me for a moment, will you!?”

Ferhad is startled by his appearance, quickly calling out to him, “Ken!”

The man turns toward the ninja, wondering with a grin, “That voice… is that you, Ferhad?”

“You bastard!” Ferhad screams out, “I know you are here in this world!”

Ken chuckles as he mutters, “A fight against Prince Arthur Pendragon and my lovely junior at the same time… this place is truly a paradise!”

He twirls his spear few times before breaking the spear apart. His body is then filled with energy coming out of the spear as his appearance changes into an armored warrior with a rhino motif. His body is a blue bodysuit with regal patterns all over it.

Spears appearing around him, sticking all around him as he screams, “Come! Feed me with your battle prowess!!!”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Red King!”

The red king is slashing some monsters around with his sword as he turns to the side.

Among the monsters, he sees a silver-haired man finished slashing a red soldier on their chest and charges forward toward him, throwing the blade onto him.

The king simply tilts his head, missing the blade off as the young man reaches him.

“Ah, “  the leader of Crimson Luxuria speaks, “The kin of Zed himself. Ryo Sashihara, right? Are you here helping your dad?”

The man, Ryo pulls up a black brace with a circle on it, and a hollow line across the circle, “Red King, are you invading my father’s sanctuary!?”

“Sanctuary!?” the king snickers, “Sanctuary is a word used on a safe place; a heaven for humanity to live in without any worries; a utopia! Your father is housing several war criminals from different worlds within his kingdom. Is that really a sanctuary for people living alongside you!?”

Ryo screams at him, “My nation is the only nation that accepts what you called as monsters, humans! Look around you! Those you have killed are not just “monsters” with no mind of their own! They are all humans, forced to be treated as cancers from their own world! They fight to protect this town they called home!”

It is true as the man says.

All of those monsters that are fallen on the battlefield; all of them slowly shifts into human before releasing their last breaths.

The Red King chuckles, “True. What you said is true. My country is also trying to hold a peace between all types of humans. Living in this world where various versions of humanity all come together, peace is the only way to live and die happy.”

“But!” he swings his sword around, aiming his blade toward the man, “Your father is the one that started the war long ago! Housing criminals without punishing them is something that no one could ignore! The man that single handedly destroy all lives in my world is treated as a saint in your kingdom! The man who took my lives from me, enslaving all around him and hurting those I cared for… he is sitting comfortably within your castle! Can you even call yourself a human if you let him roam free in this world!?”

“Then, why invade place with innocents!? Why not call him out for it!?”

“This is the only way, kid,” the Red King mutters, “I may be greener than any of you in this world, but I have been a king far longer than your father as a leader of his nation. I know faces of those who are threat to all mankind, and your father is one of those people. He will not let the man be punished, nor letting him go off from his kingdom. That man will never have the same passion as you.”

Ryo pulls out a silver card and moves it parallel above his other arm, “If you still wish to invade this place, then I won’t be holding back anymore.”

**“Card Scan!”**

The silver-haired man quickly swipes the card across the circle, as the circle lights up with silver light.

_LIMITER REMOVED! SWIPE: DRAGON CARD!_

His skin slowly turns silver, as he started to liquefies, shifting his appearance into a humanoid scaled bronze dragon person, with his skin looks more like an armor attached onto him. His head is the head of a yellow-eyed dragon, with his face is seen inside the jaw of the beast.

Ryo roars out loud and pulls up his gauntlets, having claws around it and charges forward toward the king.

The king moves to the side, evading the attack and smashes his fist onto him, but the attack doesn’t seem to faze.

The king then slashes the sword right onto the dragon man, pushing him off from him.

Ryo roars again and starts spewing flame onto him, which he rolls to the side and slashes a flame wave of his own.

The dragon man is hit by the flame and instead of being damaged, he is distracted with the king now runs toward the man, striking him some more.

“This is taking too long,” he mutters, turning toward a knight, “Lancelot, take my steed and conquer the town!”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” the knight nods, running toward the palanquin and climbs onto it.

Sitting on the throne, he presses some buttons, with the palanquin slowly shifts, turning into a huge fox. The mechanical fox runs forward, moving past the soldiers and goes straight toward the entrance.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The fox eventually rams into the gate, breaking through Zeroic Hero’s defense and moves across the town.

Stella turns toward Sho, calling out to him, “Sho, Stop him!”

“On it!” he responds.

Sho jumps back into the bike armor, as it shifts and changes into a bike with him attached above it and moves into the town.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Arthur charges both his sword and spear with a red energy and jumps onto Ken as the man smashes his own spear into the ground.

Spikes of spears protruding out from the ground and goes through him.

The prince falls onto the ground, losing his armor, muttering, “Such… strong opponent…”

Ken twirls his spear once more, this time turning toward Ferhad, “What about you? Are you going to do the same as what you did last time?”

“Last time, I wasn’t prepared,” Ferhad puts on some more hand signs, “This time, I am fully prepared.”

_FLAME!_

His suit turns into red with white lines with his hands burn in flame, moving in a stance as he jumps forward.

The ninja punches rapidly onto the spearman, not letting him retaliate even once before stepping onto the pole and flips backward and puts on some more signs.

**“Flame Jutsu: Dragon Strike!”**

Dragon made up of fire flies out from him and moves toward Ken, who spins his spear and smashes the dragon off.

_WIND!_

Now, Ferhad’s suit is white with black lining, as he charges forward, throwing ninja stars at him before putting up signs.

**“Wind Jutsu: Hurricane Crash!”**

Violent wind appears from his palms and moves through the stars, making them spinning wildly and gaining speed, crashing onto Ken.

The man sounds excited as spears appear as a wall between him and the stars, “Amazing! You have certainly grown, young shinobi!”

He stabs the ground, with longer spears appear out from the ground and straight toward the ninja.

_STRENGTH!_

His body now turns light brown as he puts up more signs, **“Body Jutsu: Full Reinforcement!”**

The spears break apart upon reaching him, as if a piece of wood is forced to smash a reinforced steel wall.

Ken laughs out loud, “Awesome! You have even reached self-manipulation techniques! At this point you have become as strong as your teacher!”

The ninja lands onto the ground as his suit turns silver with black lining, **“Steel Jutsu: Pole Quake!”**

With a stomp, squared poles of steel crash out of the ground, lining straight toward Ken as he dodges to the side.

He stands up, chuckling as he charges forward, “More, young shinobi, more!”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sho moves through the city, trying to catch up to the robot fox.

The fox jumps all over the place, reaching onto even the rooftop of the buildings as it keeps on moving forward. As it steps on the buildings, some of the walls fall off onto the ground.

“Is that thing… going to the mayor’s office?” Sho mutters to himself.

Inside his helmet, he is looking at a map, showing him and the fox moving toward the straight line and will eventually reach a huge building.

The fox then jumps onto the ground, landing onto some people as they now realized the imminent dangers.

Some changes into variety of creatures and start running away from there, some failed to escape, trapped under the buildings’ pieces.

“Damn it!” Sho screams out.

His moves his hand, shooting out missiles toward the robot, but the fox moves so fast the normal missiles do not reach it.

Sho switches the ammo into the homing one, and starts shooting some more, this time even using his shoulder-mounted cannons to shoot the same type of missiles.

The places are then bombed into dusts, even reaching the walls that trapped some people as they are able to escape.

With no people to save, Sho moves his bike and scales a building before jumping high, aiming at the fox and shoots the missiles some more.

The missiles tries to chase after the fox, but the agility of the fox makes it unable to get hit by the bombs.

The fox eventually reaches a particular building, as Lancelot jumps out of the machine and stabs onto the grey flag on top of it, tearing it off from the pole on the building.

He jumps back into the fox, as the fox faces Sho, but simply ignores him, leaving him alone, standing there.

Sho shifts his lower side into bipedal mode as he turns and stare at the torn flag.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The fight between the Red King and Ryo is certainly not going well.

The man is constantly trying to defeat him, but the king pushes him off without much even after so many attacks he has given so far.

Ryo charges up a huge fireball before him and throws it at him, but the king slashes the ball away and jumps forward, hitting him straight with a punch.

The transformation breaks apart, with Ryo now rolls onto the ground, withering in pain.

The king points his sword toward him, smiling, “You are a great warrior. Your passion for your people is commendable. Unfortunately you are standing on the wrong side of the war. Pray to the Kreetors that your new life in the new world will be better.”

The Red King now pulls his blade high, prepare to strike the man down.

But the blade did not reach him. It reaches someone else’s fingers, and that man is not bleeding.

The black-haired man stares at the king, looking calm as he pushes the king off with a simple push.

“Wh-who are you!?” the king demands him.

The man gives a warm smile, responding to him, “Birth name: Aenoria Éclair. Real name: Xarakos.”

His body shifts immediately, showing the face of a one-yellow eyed located on the right, wolf-faced bipedal creature.

His stomach opens up, shooting out a green beam that shoots the king away from there, moving backward and stops near some red knights.

The creature turns back into his human appearance as he mutters, “You’ve won. Stand back.”

He then disappears, leaving the king and the prince all alone.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Ken turns around in the middle of the fight as he turns back toward Ferhad, waving at him before disappearing into a blue light.

“ _We’ve finished. It’s time to retreat.”_

Kyu’s voice is heard right at that moment as he stops.

He turns toward the battlefield, looking at the red soldiers running into the city, ignoring all members of the Zeroic Hero.

The king approaches Stella, calling out to her, “You do not look like the leader of Zed’s army.”

Stella mutters with a cold tone, “I am a member of a secret organization. We do not need to know who we are.”

“Then,” the king mutters, “Are you here to stop the war?”

“I am here to stop you from killing everyone.”

The king turns back to the battlefield as he mutters, “It is too late for that.”

He walks past the group, moving into the city, leaving them all by themselves.

Ferhad is still staring at the battlefield, seeing bodies all over the place, mostly those who are not wearing the red armors.

In the middle of the field, Ryo grabs the nearby sword and smashes the sword into the ground, screaming in anger with tears running down his face.

“GOD DAMN IT!!! DAMN IT ALL!!!!”

He repeatedly stabs the ground, till the sword breaks into two.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scarlet is sitting on a building near the entrance, staring at the bloody field, muttering to herself, “The war will never ends no matter what world we’re in, do they?”

She stands up as she takes out a pendant hidden inside her shorts.

The pendant opens up, showing the face of Leliana and Shraffe, standing side by side and smiling.

She cries as she mutters, “If this is what it takes to get my life back, then I guess I have no choice.”

She breaks the pendant into pieces, throwing them off onto the ground below as she grabs a rapier out of nowhere and disappears.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

That day begins the countdown to the end of the Land of the Dead…

 

**Chapter ends.**

**Next: Within Layaria, Sarah and Athena follows Sarah’s other version as they learn Layaria’s response to the eventual reboot and Crimson Luxuria’s invasion.**


	8. 4 - Genocide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Athena is still with Sarah's counterpart from a different world.

# Genocide

Within the Land of the Dead, there is a more futuristic looking city, where buildings are almost not touching the ground, cars are flying and colors are being abandoned in favor of white surface with light blue neon lines as the texture of all buildings.

In the tallest building (or rather, the building that levitates off from the ground the highest), a lone figure is sitting before a giant-sized computer with thin holographic screen and keyboards made up of lines, constantly pressing onto the buttons as she goes through files over files on the computer.

“Miss Kelly, how long are you going to go through the archive?”

Those words are being spoken by another figure entering the room through an automatic sliding door. This figure is a green-haired female, styling her hair in a very short and messy manner, wearing a form fitting outfit of white clothing with light blue neon lights all around her body, even on her back and her limbs.

This female holds a lollipop within her mouth while she holds onto a white towel with her right hand on her head, slowly rubbing her hair off.

She approaches the figure on the computer, questioning her one more time, “Miss Kelly, I’m speaking to you right now…”

The figure on the chair is a black-haired female, with the part of her hair away from her head is colored blue, resting on her left shoulder. She is also wearing the same form-fitting clothing, though this one has a hood that she uses to cover her head not too long ago.

This woman, Kelly Chrisman turns her attention toward the one who approaches her, muttering, “I’m hearing you, Nana.”

Nana sighs, stretching her body to the back while speaking up to her, “You know, you never told me why there is a need for you to go through the Timekeeper’s archive like that. If anybody learns about this, I will definitely get fired from being a Timekeeper.”

Kelly is heard giggling at her worries as she mutters, “I failed to see why you bunch still need to do your work.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are in the Land of the Dead right now. Time in this place is very wonky. There is literally no reason for any of you to keep your job still.”

Kelly turns back toward the computer as a folder opens up before her, “There you go.”

Nana leans forward, staring at the folders, “What are we looking at?”

“We are looking at the records where those green portals are most prominently appeared.”

“Those green portals…” Nana mutters, staring at the files intently, “It’s the cause of a lot of worlds’ sudden demise, isn’t it? Where are there only three?”

“Who knows?” Kelly turns back toward her, “Whoever the perpetrators are, they surely take their sweet time killing off these three worlds, as if they are retrieving something very important from here.”

The green-haired girl mutters, going through the files without analyzing them first, “These three… I believed these worlds are where Layaria, Titanius and Zed’s Sanctuary came from, right?”

“Yup!” Kelly nods happily, “A world where heroes work as part of a shadowy organization, a world where heroes are part of militaries, and a world where heroes hunt monsters for fun. I wonder what similarities they have with each other.”

Nana sighs as she grabs a jacket of the same color scheme, wearing it as she moves toward the door, “You investigate those files. I’ll be out for a work.”

“Have fun!” the blue-haired girl waves at her while still maintaining eye contact onto the screen.

As the door closes, she stands up from the computer and throws both arms forward.

A huge black hole appears in the middle of the room.

“I will need a bigger room to work on those.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Somewhere else, where a more urban city closely resembled ours is located, a blonde-haired female in dark red shirt and a red scarf around her neck, holding onto plastic bags, walks out from a fast food restaurant, moving through the crowd before entering a tall building just around the corner.

Using an elevator located in the building, she reaches into the fifth floor, and approaches a door labeled ‘10’.

She knocks the door three times, and immediately she hears something unlocked.

She quickly pushes the door, entering it and sees a pair of females sitting on the two available beds, staring at the television.

A female in white shirt and beige pants, named knows as Sarah speaks up, looking at the female in white bathrobe sitting beside her, “I am definitely not wrong about this. This IS Kuala Lumpur, but it looks so different than our own place.”

“I don’t know,” the girl in bathrobe, namely Athena shakes her head, “I still cannot wrap my head around the whole ‘afterlife’ business.”

“I got you some WcDonaldo,” the girl in red puts the plastic bag on the nearby desk, “Eat up, I’m going out.”

“Out?” Athena turns toward her, “You mean, that mission of yours?”

Sarah stands up, staring at the girl in red, who looks exactly like her in every way, “Is there anything we can help you with?”

“You don’t need to help me with anything. I am but a hired muscle. I don’t bring civilians in my line of work.”

Sarah insists, “We are not just any civilians. We are a special agent of sort. We can surely help at least something.”

“You are going to have to do a lot more than just words if you want to convince her, “Athena stares at this other Sarah, which is indeed her name, “My girlfriend is not someone that listens to others. She’s a rebel.”

The other Sarah sighs, looking away in annoyance, “I wish I had that tenacity. Fine, sit down and I’ll tell you about my mission.”

She walks toward the desk and pulling the nearby chair to sit on it, “Listen up closely. My mission concerns the fate of all lives from millions of worlds. Failure is definitely not an option.”

She adjusts her seat before continuing, “As I’ve told you before when you first arrived here, I am working with Kyu Aranzo, a chieftain from the small village of Kirana Village, and also the leader of Aranzo Household.”

“I know that,” Sarah speaks up to her counterpart, “Back in my world, my uncle insists on studying about our ancestry. Kyu Aranzo and his wife, Sakura Aranzo are both my family’s ancestors. Kirana Village is a village where every year my family would come from all over the world just to gather to celebrate stuff, like Eid Fitr and alike.”

“That’s good to know,” the other Sarah mutters, “What you don’t know is that they both have survived this world before, and they were the previous Kreetors candidates, who after created a new world from scratch, rejected their position as new Kreetors to live as a normal human being, at a cost of relieving lives in Land of the Dead once again.”

“Wait!” Athena interrupts her, “Are you saying that he is our world’s creator? That he is essentially our god?”

“Not really, no,” she shakes her head, “Kreetors are not gods. They are as fragile as a normal human being. The difference is that they have removed their lifespan and are essentially living somewhere outside of our universes, tasking in creating worlds within Xey Corl megaverse forever. They are reality warpers, and nothing more than just that.”

Sarah stares at her, “That’s quite specific information. You told us before that Kreetors never communicated with us before. How do you know all of these?”

The other Sarah looks away, “I… I have a personal encounter with one of them. We… don’t like each other…”

“Then, what does that has anything to do with your mission?” Athena springs a question, breaking her melancholic stare.

The other Sarah (or S-Sarah) opens up her mouth, “I’ve received words that the reboot will begin eventually. One person among us all will be selected as a Kreetor and they will be in charge of creating their first world, and all of us will have a new life in that world; a second chance in the layman’s term.”

“As a previous Kreetor, Kyu knows the potential danger of this position being fell in the wrong hands. With this world having filled with a lot more variety of people, chances for that to happen are most likely.”

“I am one of the spies sent toward various parts of this world, either recruiting new members or gaining information on the four empires. I was tasked with spying on Layaria’s regions.”

She then turns toward the window nearby, looking at various skyscrapers outside, “We are at the capital city of Layaria right now. My current mission is to learn and investigate Layaria’s stance regarding the reboot.”

S-Sarah stands up, mumbling, “Previous investigation stated them as being passive, but with Crimson Luxuria starting a war campaign against Zed’s Sanctuary recently, things may have changed for them.”

Athena wonders, “How are you going to do that then?”

“Layaria’s elite army consists of warriors from an organization called Affiliate. I simply need to be in their guild to learn all I need to know.”

Sarah suddenly stands up, looking shocked as she mutters, “That’s… Affiliate is an organization we were belonged to!”

“Yeah,” Athena joins her, “ And Affiliate has always been about saving people before. We have never ventured into the territory of being militarized personnel. We would never use our powers for that purpose. Heck, governments hate us for a really long time.”

Sarah quickly steps forward, holding onto her other self, “You HAVE to let us join you! This place may have been the only connection I have in this world. Besides…”

She quickly steps away from her, confusing the Sarah in red.

Athena taps onto her date’s shoulder, calming her as she turns toward S-Sarah, “She… She has a grave to visit. His grave is in Kuala Lumpur back in our world.”

“I see…” S-Sarah steps away from them, muttering, “If this is indeed a place from your world, you can stay here if you want to. You don’t need to follow me around anymore.”

Sarah shakes her head, “I can’t… I am no longer allowed to be in this place, not by a long shot.”

The girl in red sighs, looking away before walking out of the room, “I’ll be at the lobby if you ever need me. I’ll be waiting for you two to get ready.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the same city, but at a different location, two figures are standing before a domed building between two tall buildings, located at the opposite of a monument of some kind.

One of these two figures is a man with a black mask on his face, hiding the upper part of his face except his eyes, wearing a tattered black cloak over his grey tight shirt. He also wears grey trousers and gloveless black gloves around his hands. His hair is black and shaggy.

The other figure is a white-haired female, with her hair is braided behind her, reaching her back. She wears a yellow sweater jacket but do not zip it enough, instead showing off green brassier inside as subtle as possible. She also wears a black tracksuit.

The two have been staring toward the building, looking up at the label ‘Affiliate Guild’ shown right above them before the masked man turns toward her, “How long are we going to stand here?”

The white-haired female slowly smiling wide, with her fanged teeth are seen as she responds toward his question, “I just… could not stop to see how idiotic the elites of Layaria are, showing off their headquarters in the public easily without any concern. To think this group is known as a shadowy organization that strikes fear in evil doer’s hearts.”

“I could not care less how they do their job,” the man leaves her, walking toward the huge door and pushes it forward.

The woman joins him, as the two walk through the hall inside the guild, seeing people left and right hanging and socializing like a gathering.

The female turns all around her as she follows him, muttering, “These people must have their easy lives, living like this without much concern. I can see how much their worlds have been pampering them this whole time.”

She now walks backward while catching up toward the masked man, “They are this kingdom’s so called elite, yet they lived unlike one.”

Her head turns to one side, seeing a notice board labeled ‘Job List’.

“They live as mercenaries, only doing their job for money, subsequently betraying what the guild stands for.”

The two reaches a counter with receptionists-like people sitting on the other side of the counter, located at the edge of the room from the front door, with the woman peers toward her, “Hey, how can I started a job request?”

One of the receptionists, a male, quickly pulls his head up toward her, “Owh, you want to put up a job request?”

Seeing her nodding in excitement, the receptionist takes out a small board with pieces of paper and a a string and a pen at the edge of it attached onto it, “Write down the necessary information regarding yourself and the mission you wished to post.”

The woman writes down whatever the paper asked her, even on the mission information but then she stops when she sees the words ‘MISSION CLASS’.

Beside the words are boxes needed to be ticked, and besides the boxes are letters C, B, A and EX.

The woman approaches the receptionist again, questioning him, “What does it meant by Mission Class?”

The man pulls his head up again, wondering, “Were you two perhaps new here?”

Receiving another nod, he responds to her, “Missions are differed based on their difficulties. C-class missions are on the smaller scales, like robbery, escort mission and such. B-class missions concerning the whole city; like mass robbery, or serial killers. A-class missions concerning the whole kingdom; like a super villain of some sort. EX-class is the rarer types of missions where other kingdoms are involved, like a war, or a request from other kingdoms.”

“Do note that the president of Layaria will have to personally approve EX-class requests.”

The white-haired woman nods, ticking one of the boxes before giving the board back to him, “Here you go!”

The receptionist takes a look at it before standing up, turning toward her as he shows her the paper, “Is this mission class true?”

“Yeah! Is there a problem?”

“No…” he turns the board back to him, “Please wait for a moment. I shall consult this to the president for a while.”

He quickly runs out from the counter, moving straight toward into a door nearby.

The two shrug at the man before sitting at a nearby bench.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Knocks are heard on the door in an office, with Nazmi Haris, the president of Layaria moves his attention from the papers on his desk toward the door, “Come in.”

The door opens up, with a blonde-haired spectacled female with a file in her hand enters the room, bowing toward him, “Good afternoon, Mr. President.”

The middle-aged man smiles at her, “Good afternoon, Syarifah. Is there anything for me today?”

“Just a report regarding the stances of other countries following the news of the reboot, sir.”

“Right,” the man looks down, sighing before looking back toward her, “Then, what about them?”

The female opens up the files, reading whatever it is on the paper, “As we have already heard, Crimson Luxuria has broken the truce and agreements between nations and begins their campaign of invasion on the Sanctuary. Recently they have managed to invade a small town at the border between the two countries.”

“The Sanctuary, on the other hand, remains being enigmatic. We could not identify their next move, nor were we able to contact anyone from there for any confirmation. The capital city of Sanctuary, as usual, remains inaccessible for the outsiders.”

“Titanius is reported to have strengthening their fortresses when Crimson Luxuria’s invaded the Sanctuary, and is now provoking them for breaking the agreements. For now, they remain steady in their own home.”

“Kirana Village remains isolated from us all. Both the chieftain and his wife are not around any moment, and we have no idea their whereabouts are. In the meantime, none of the villagers are doing anything at this very moment.”

“That is all,” she concludes, putting back the files into the folder.

The president sighs, muttering, “I am afraid this will happen. We’ve known far too long the animosity Crimson Luxuria has against the Sanctuary, and Titanius unwillingness to act against anything that is not of their concern.”

Syarifah mutters, wondering, “Are we going to assist the Sanctuary or are we going to hold our ground?”

Nazmi puts his face onto the desk, with voices are heard from him, “If we didn’t help them, we are also going to break the truce agreed between the four nations, but Crimson Luxuria is our closest allies from the time they have arrived here in this world. I am not willing to fight against them.”

The man then asks her, “Have they ever asked anything from us? Did they not ask for our help?”

“I don’t believe they do,” she replies to him as she tilts her head, “We still do not receive any message from them whatsoever.”

The president sighs, as he looks around before asking her, “What about the Kreetor’s candidates? Have you found any info?”

“I’m afraid I could not,” she shakes her head, “We have no indication what the criteria really is, of if the Kreetors even have one in the first place.”

The man taps his hands onto the desk as he starts breathing heavily, “I… I just want my family to be happy… The Kreetor candidate… he can do that… isn’t he?”

Syarifah stares at him for a moment, before moving close to him, rubbing onto his shoulder as she tries to calm him down, “Of course he is. This new Kreetor will create a new world of their liking. What you wished for can come true.”

“Then…” the man’s breathing slowly turns normal, “My children… they can finally have their lives back. I can have my son back, and you can marry him, as intended. My daughter can become a mother whenever she wishes for… My wife… she won’t be crying anymore…”

He suddenly stands up, and hugs the woman tight, “We can have a normal life… that’s why this person is important to us…”

Syarifah simply smiles, tapping onto the man’s back.

Knocks are heard, with the two release their holds of each other, with the president fixes his uniform, “Come in.”

The door opens up, as the receptionist peers into the office, “Sir, we have an urgent, EX-class mission request. You will need to see this.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“This is the place?”

The three ladies are outside of the building, as the two lovers are looking up at the guild, confused.

Sarah now looks all over the place, checking out the surrounding area of the building as she expresses her bewilderment, “I was under the impression that the Affiliate we are talking about is a shadowy organization full of vigilantes!”

“I don’t remember describing that to you,” S-Sarah simply stares at her with no emotion is shown, “But, I understand your confusion. From what I’ve gathered throughout my journey, this Affiliate is indeed a group that works far from the public knowledge, but this world changes people.”

“It… changes people?” Athena turns toward her.

The woman in red nods, “You two just arrived here not too long ago, so you do not see what others saw. The president, Nazmi Haris were here long, long ago, and he is stated became a broken man and starts his own war campaign under the pretense of ‘protecting the world’.”

She closes her eyes, “All four nations are formed from each of their leader’s selfish desire. This is something we need to remember when talking about them.”

Athena cross her arms, giving a thought of this, “This world changes people… I can truly understand that statement. As a medical expert, it is my job to prevent people around me to suffer death. But in this world where your qualification of entering here is being dead, I can only imagine how hard it is for people to accept this, especially when they are here without people they cared for, as if they are being tortured for it.”

She then turns to look at her girlfriend, “Both of us may also be broken beyond repair the longer we stay here.”

S-Sarah quickly breaks the silence, moving onto the gate, “No need to loiter. We have a job to do.”

The three enter the guild, and now move through the hallway.

The woman in red moves her head toward the two ladies, instructing them, “You two can go for a meal. We are staying here for a long time after all.”

“What about you?” Sarah wonders as she responds to her.

“I am going to look for a friend of mine. He is pretty much my informant in this place.”

The lone woman walks away from there, leaving the two, who simply shrug as they move toward the eatery-part of the hall.

S-Sarah approaches the counter, but then stops.

Her face shows some sort of distress, and sweats start running down from her glands.

She feels a huge amount of hatred on her body, and her chest slowly tightens up. She gasps for air few times.

She quickly turns around, looking for the reason for this sudden feeling. Her expression clearly shows anger and irritation.

Her eyes stop, seeing the black-masked man, who is sitting at the bench with the white-haired girl sleeping on his shoulder.

“You!” she screams out, walking toward him, “What are you doing here!? Aren’t you with the Sanctuary!?”

The man stares at her, before wondering, “What I do does not concern you, is it not?”

“Does not concern me!? Your entire existence is what destroys everything I have in my life! Are you going to ignore all that!?”

“I did nothing to you. I simply possessed the body of my host.”

The female beside rubs her eyes as she sit up straight, yawning before opening up her eyes, “Why are you so noisy? I was swimming through the sea of rainbow~…”

She then notices the woman before her, and turns toward him, “Your friend?”

“Not at all. Just someone who holds a grudge against my host.”

“Ah~,” she smiles at him, “That dictator? Let me guess, did your host raped her? Judging from your world of origin, that seems to be the case.”

“No,” the masked man responded to her, “It is more than that. It seems my host has been breaking her mind over and over, turning her into an emotionless killer that almost killed her own fiancée.”

“Shut up!” S-Sarah pulls out a red gun out onto him, “I do not know why you are here, but nothing good ever happened around you!”

The white-haired female stands up, moving toward her as she grabs the end of the pistol, “Listen, girl. I really don’t care about your beef with him, but I will not let you or anybody stands before us doing our work. You and your petty revenge is nothing against our desire to live. Now, pissed off!”

“No,” the masked man stands up, “This is perfect. We can start our job right now.”

“Now?” she turns toward him, glaring at him, “Are you serious?”

“This is what we intended to do, is it not?”

“Sure,” the white-haired girl now grins, before glaring at S-Sarah, “Then, we can finally have our fun.”

She suddenly jumps high, landing in the middle of the hall before bowing.

All eyes are now looking at this strange fellow, intrigue with what they are looking at.

Athena notices of her, quickly signaling Sarah to see what is about to be unfolded.

The girl stands up, revealing a brace with circular object on it as she speaks out loud, “Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to your own funeral, with the courtesy of I, Kira Sashihara of Zed’s Sanctuary For Those Who Are Dead.”

She then pulls out a black card out of her pants, swiping it through her bracelet, **“Card Scan.”**

_LIMITER REMOVED! SWIPE: BLUE SHARK CARD!_

Her skin turns black and liquefies, shifting her human appearance into a figure with a feminine blue form-fitting outfit, and some armor on her upper side of her body. There are short curved daggers on both of her arms, looking like a fin, and a long skirt on her lower side that split its front and back sides along her tights. Her head is a head of a shark, with her masked face and white eyes inside the jaw of the beast.

S-Sarah, holds onto her gun tight, muttering to herself as she sees the girl’s transformation before her, “That blasted nation’s name changes again? It’s about time already. Wait, her name…”

The girl, Kira now points her fingers toward S-Sarah, “You can either be my first guest performer, or you can be my audience. It is your choice.”

The door near the reception opens up with a loud bang, with Nazmi, Syarifah and the receptionist run out of there, now joining this strange spectacle.

Syarifah quickly screams out toward Kira, “Hey, what are you doing!? No transformation is allowed in this place.”

“I don’t care,” she shakes her head, “I don’t work here. I only work for my dad.”

Her body liquefies again, this time she turns fully into a body of water, only to flows toward the crowd and lands after swiping her dagger off through a man’s head.

The head rolls on the floor, and this is enough for some to scream and run, and for some to pull out various weapons of theirs.

“You dare killed our friend!?” one of those people within this building screams out in anger, “You are making a BIG mistake by picking a fight directly within this guild!”

“Not really,” the masked man steps forward, facing the restless crowd, “That is exactly what we want to do. It’s written in the mission request form.”

Nazmi turns toward the receptionist, quickly grabbing the board off from him, taking a look at the request.

CLIENT: Kira Sashihara, Charles Eisen

MISSION: Invading and taking control of Zed’s Sanctuary.

DETAIL: Just invade the goddamn place.

MISSION CLASS: EX

The president pulls his head up in disbelief, “Wha- Aren’t you a daughter of Zed himself? That’s you, right? Why would you wish for us to attack your country?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kira glares toward him, “I don’t give a damn about my people. I only want you to attack us, that is all.”

“But-“

“It’s a declaration of war, idiot!”

The masked man snickers, revealing his own bracelet, in the form of a corroded gem on top of lines around his wrist, “Perhaps we should actually give them the incentive, like how Zed instructed us.”

“I was about to get to that part,” Kira now turns toward Charles.

S-Sarah notices a faint glow coming from the gem as she screams out, “Drop that gem, now!!”

He ignores her, instead speaking out loud for all to hear, **“Destruction Release.”**

An explosion of wave is felt, with some of them are being thrown out from the building, smashing through the brick walls and landed right on the road around the architecture.

Those who were failed to be thrown out, all learned first-hand what if felt to see the ceiling of a building crumbles upon you abruptly.

Sarah is the first to open her eyes.

She is one of the lucky few that is thrown out, as she slowly pushes herself up.

“Ara~?” Kira, who stands in the middle of the incident along with Charles, notices of her standing up, slowly turning toward her, “You are not supposed to be alive.”

Charles simply looks around him, standing there within a black armor that resembles a king, even with a huge crown over his head, and a cape behind him. He also wears a shield on his chest that shapes like a skull.

“Wha-“ she mutters, glaring at the two, “What are you two doing? Who are you people? Why are you doing this?”

Kira walks toward her, muttering with a smile from inside her helmet, “We are Dimen-gard, and we deserve to have a world that accept us. Now, please die so that we could make the casualty count higher?”

She turns into water and moves immediately before her, prompting her to jumps to the left, evading a slash that nearly reaches her cheek.

_COMBAT MODE INITIATE. GUNNER MODE SELECTED._

Without much word coming from her mouth, she allows her body to wears a sophisticated battle outfit while sitting inside a white wall.

Once again, the wall saved her from being assaulted as the moment Kira’s dagger reaches the wall, she is thrown few feet away from it.

With the wall disappears, she quickly rains down bullets onto her opponent, at which her enemy is seen swiping a black card across her bracelet.

_SWIPE: SAW SHARK CARD!_

Her daggers disappear, with her right hand appears to have a long saw-like blade worn.

Kira slashes the bullets off, hitting each of them with an invisible wave before charging forward, closing in onto the gunner as she tries to stab her.

Sarah quickly side steps the first stab, and dodging left and right away from slashes coming from her, before shooting her at point blank, forcing the shark lady to moves away from her.

“Dammit,” Sarah mutters to herself, “I wish I have more than just a pair of guns.”

She pulls up her box, and starts pressing buttons on the screen before seeing something labeled ‘FORM CHANGE’.

Quickly pressing onto it, she picks the first option she sees that isn’t highlighted before doing a backflip, avoiding another slash from Kira.

“Focus on the battle, you entitled bitch!” she screams out toward her, “Is your enemy not worth the effort of paying attention to!? Or were you treated your job as a hobby of some sort, like all of these other people working as “elites” for their own nation!”

“Is chivalry even exists in your world!?” Kira screams out, trying to stab her few times while Sarah continues to evade her, “You and your world disgust me!”

“I have no idea what are you talking about!” the white-clad heroine expresses her confusion before finally seeing her armor being replaced into looking like an armored Chinese soldier, along with her helmet mirroring that.

Holding onto a Chinese Dao sword, she moves it around before standing in a stance, “I can’t tell if that is exactly how my world works, but I’ll tell you why I fight. It is not because of a hobby, but it is to confirm my life; my self’s worth!”

“Interesting value,” Kira stands in her own fighting stance, “Then, in the next world, I’ll be giving you a chance to live up to that goal of yours!”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah is once again confused, “Are you a Kreetor candidate?”

“No, but I’ll make them pick me as one. They don’t have a choice!” the shark lady quickly runs toward her as the two resume clashing attacks with each other.

But before the two could even clash, Kira feels her shoulder being grabbed, as she turns to see Charles holding onto her, “Enough. We are leaving.”

In a flash, the two simply disappears, leaving the building no longer standing as one.

Sarah loses her armor, breathing heavily as she slowly falls.

“Here you go,” Athena shows up, grabbing her from the side, halting her fall to the stop.

S-Sarah wakes up and points her gun around, as she finally realizes what had happened, “Damn it! That fucking asshole; escaped again!”

Screaming in frustration, she shoots the sky few times, wasting all bullets till all the gun can do is making a clicking sound and throws the gun off onto the ground.

Syarifah pushes herself up, helping Nazmi standing straight, staring at what has become of the guild.

“No…” he mutters to himself, “These people… some of them are just visitors…”

Sarah notices of the middle-aged man, before slowly trying to walk toward him, “U-Uncle! Uncle Nazmi!”

Syarifah turns to see her, startling in shock as she whispers to herself, “You are… me?”

She finally notices S-Sarah as well, “You too?”

S-Sarah simply ignores her, looking away as she is still frustrated with what had happened.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Somewhere else, on the other side of the world, a car enters a town, and immediately stops before a fast food restaurant.

The fox at the passenger seat wakes up first, before climbing the man she sleeps on, tapping his face few times.

Shraffe quickly wakes up in a shock, as his eyes are now staring toward all around him, “Where are we?”

“Just another town,” Sakura speaks up, looking at the two, grinning.

Shraffe turns to his side, seeing Leliana’s head right on his shoulder before pushing her off, waking her up as well.

“Wha-where?” the green-haired girl mutters in confusion.

Sakura responds to her, “I believe this place is called Kyoto, but I don’t have a map with me to confirm that statement.”

“How about we have something to eat first?”

Leliana nods, opens up the car and steps out from it, followed by the fox that turns into Tamamo.

The three ladies walk into the restaurant, leaving Shraffe, who is stretching his whole body.

He suddenly stops, finding himself unable to move and stands there, petrified.

It is because before him is a red-haired female, who sees him in shock, before grinning maniacally.

“S-S-S-Scarlet…” he tries to form a full sentence, but that word is the only one that he is able to speak, after much difficulty.

Scarlet slowly walks toward him, moving herself close to him; lose enough to hug him as she now whispers onto his left ear.

“It’s been so long… my favorite toy…”

 

**End chapter.**

**Next: Scarlet and her partner roam around Kyoto in search of something, but she seems to be distracted with trying to meet Shraffe at any opportunity. Shraffe unlocks a new form to fight her back.**


	9. 5 - Soul Link

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shraffe meets a bitter part of his past.

**Soul Linked**

From the field of Nasu, the journey forward aren’t exactly could be described as fun.

With the revelation of what had happened to him throughout his life, Leliana could not do anything toward the man beside him.

She could simply stay silent, and occasionally tries to look at the man who has claimed to have violated women in his life.

Leliana feels not disgust for him, but sympathy.

From how he broke the news to her, she can tell how much suffering he sees to himself when hurting those unknown females.

She could not guess the feeling of pain he may have felt, but she knows how much this hurts him.

But this leaves her with no idea how to respond to him. Should she try to comfort him? Or maybe say something positive to him?

This is not what she expects when she finally able to see him again, and now all of the feeling of attachment she has for him feels so wrong.

Perhaps… there is one thing she could talk about? Maybe something could definitely cheer him up?

“Hey,” she tries to get his attention, “You said before that you have a daughter.”

A smile slowly appears on his face, “I did, didn’t I? My daughter is the only reason why I still alive.”

“There are times when I wish to have faced death instead of living, but whenever I see my daughter’s face, I just couldn’t.”

“Is she that cute?”

Shraffe chuckles a bit, “Yeah, she is. But it is more out of concern, truly. What kind of father I am if I were to leave her to her mother?”

“Can I meet her?” Leliana leans toward him, “She sounds like someone I could play with.”

The smile quickly disappears from his face as he shakes his head vigorously, “N-no, you can’t!”

“Wh-why?”

“Her mother… is a very dangerous person,” his eyes started looking away wildly, “She has never been able to become nice to any female before. I’m afraid… she’s going to…”

“S-sure!” the green-haired lady tries to reassure him, “If she is as dangerous as you said, I am not meeting or your daughter.”

“Sorry…”

“It’s fine!” Leliana mutters, “It’s a bit sad I could not play with your daughter, but if that’s your wish, then I understand. But, can I at least know her name?”

“Aenori. It’s Aenoria Éclair.”

The woman glares at him, looking disbelief, “That’s a strange name.”

“it’s her mother’s choice. She said it’s her family’s name.”

“Really? What a strange name for a girl to have. It almost feels like she…”

He interrupts her, “-doesn’t care about her own daughter?”

Leliana is startled, “I… didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine…” he mutters, “She never loves our daughter anyway. In fact, I don’t think she wants to see her at all, if not because of me…”

He suddenly curls up inside the car, mumbling to himself, “This is… this is why I can’t leave her alone… I… I don’t want her to…”

“You have… someone like that too, right?” he turns toward her.

“Someone… like who?”

Shraffe mutters, “Don’t you have someone you love so much, you do not want to get separated from them?”

“I…”

“It’s your world’s version of me, right? It’s the other world’s Shraffe; the person you wish to never get separated from.”

“I… I wish I could say that…” the green-haired girl looks down.

He notices her saddened expression, and feels that he has touched something he shouldn’t said, but he has no idea what else to say.

Leliana wishes to say something, but she could not think of anything to say without scaring him. Besides, her heart is too heavy to even say anything.

Sitting close to him feels both right and wrong. It is as if her dream is being realized in a twisted way; it is as if the fate is laughing at her for even thinking of seeing a dead person.

Thus, the two becomes silenced throughout the whole journey, with both masking their awkwardness by sleeping, only woken up when they have eventually arrived before a building.

Upon arriving, Sakura finally turns her head toward the two sleeping figures, and slightly shock to see how close the two accidentally becomes; Leliana’s head is resting onto Shraffe’s shoulder, and becomes the resting place for his head instead.

A smile slowly forms on her face as she wakes them up, “Wakey-wakey, you two! Does burger sounds good for a lunch?”

Her loud and cheery voices do not immediately wake them up, but instead the fox awaken from that, now standing on all four before tapping her front paws onto Shraffe’s face.

Shraffe quickly wakes up in a shock, and with that startling Leliana as well. None of them seems to have noticed the states they were in before.

He looks around, outside of the window as he mutters, “Where are we?”

“Just another town,” Sakura grins at both of them, “I think it’s called Jakarta?”

Leliana stares at her, confused, “Jakarta is not a town.”

“Really?” the purple-haired woman turns her eyes outside, “This place isn’t from my time; I wouldn’t know.”

The green-haired girl questions her, “I’ve been meaning to ask you this. What kind of world did you came from before?”

“Which one are you talking about?”

“Which one?” she stares toward Sakura, confused by her choice of words, “The one you came from; the place you were before this world?”

Sakura chuckles, seeing her bewilderment, “Before this place, I was living during the time civilizations just started.”

Leliana quickly cuts her off, “You were living during those times?”

“What time?” Shraffe stares toward her, “I didn’t catch up with the education, so I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“It’s the oldest civilizations,” the green-haired lady explains, “I’ve learned that from the history text book about four oldest recorded civilizations; Mesopotomia, Indus, Egypt and Ancient China. I’ve also heard from our grandparents of the unrecorded fifth civilization that managed to hide everything they have from the historian, the Aranzo Civilization.”

“Aranzo?” Shraffe responds to her, “That’s Sakura’s last name, and that is also our ancestors’ last name. They mention that so many times; stating how we should all be proud of the name Aranzo that come from the first two ancestors; Kyu and Sakura Ara-“

The two childhood friends now slowly move their heads, turning to look at Sakura, who simply smiles at both of their gradually horrified reaction.

Leliana mutters, “Y-you are… our… ancestor?”

Giggling at them, Sakura speaks up to them, “The Land of the Dead did not only connect people between worlds, but also between eras. It should not surprise you if we ever meet people from the history, though I wouldn’t know which name was recorded.”

“I’m… sorry if we ever being rude…” Shraffe bows toward her, “You have been nice to me, yet I didn’t even call you with the word ‘-san’ at the back of your name.”

“Were you lived in Japan before?” Leliana questions him as he pulls his head back, nodding toward her.

“Yes, I have been living in Japan for the rest of my life.”

Sakura mutters, “You don’t need to be formal with me. Maybe from your perspective I am an elderly woman with rich history, but from my perspective, you two just so happen to have last name similar to mine. Before I was a queen of a civilization, I was just a simply school student back in the world I was born into. The name Aranzo aren’t common but aren’t special either. It’s just a peculiar last name.”

She then turns toward the building before them, signaling them to follow her with a wave of her arm, “Come, I am so hungry I could eat a pony.”

Shraffe and Leliana follows her, but ended up bumped onto each other, startling both of them.

The two now stand still, staring at each other and not moving even an inch.

The fox near them shifts back into her human self, mumbling at them, “Master, I’ll be inside.”

The fox girl leaves them, leaving them still staring onto each other.

It is an awkward scenery to look at, let alone to be part of it.

Each one of them could not think of an appropriate response ever since their previous conversation. Their minds have decided that even a simple ‘hello’ is embarrassing for their lips to form.

“We-we- we should…” Leliana is the first one attempting to break the ice, but the same feeling still lingers around her, finding it hard to form a cohesive sentence.

In the end she simply nods at him before walking into the building, leaving him all alone, staring at her.

He stands there, ponders over something while flexing his hands for a moment before stepping forward.

It’ll be great if he is able to enter the building earlier, however…

“Wha-“

Shraffe stops right at his track.

Right in front of him is a red-haired female, grinning maniacally at him.

“S-S-S-S-S-Scarlet…” he whispers, unable to let out the tone of his voice louder, due to his voice being enveloped in fear.

His heart beats as fast as humanly possible, and his brain could not even process properly with all of the adrenaline come rushing in.

From grin, she gives him a normal smile before moving close to his ear and whispers to him, “It’s been so long… my favorite toy…”

Shraffe could not move even if he wants to. Somehow his brain is telling him that his limbs are bounded to the ground with shackles. He knows that is not true, but his hands can feel something that isn’t there, thus disrupting his senses and logic.

Scarlet continuously creeping herself toward him, “It has been so long, you know? I could never find any replacement for you…”

R-replacement? Is she…? Has she been…?

“It’s hard you know?” she coyly smiles at him, “I’ve been through tons and tons of worlds, and not once can I ever remember which world I stepped on. Finding you is a lot harder than you’d think…”

“There are millions and millions of you out there. Each of you is so different from each other, even your genetics are different…”

Scarlet then shows off a grin, closing her eyes in a somewhat satisfactory look for her, “No more… Now that I’ve found you… we can finally be together… forever…”

The red-haired seductress slowly moves her arms, wrapping around him with her face closing him toward him, ready for a kiss.

He could only close his eyes, ready for the inevitable. Memories of the old play inside his head once again.

Once more, he sees himself being shackled inside a dark room, with nothing but a torn up set of clothing.

Once more, he sees the same woman, with similar appearance, getting close to him with a smile as he caressing his thighs.

Once more, he can feel a dread-like feel closing him onto him.

Lucky for him that this feeling is quickly being thrown away from him, with the sound of feet being dragged on the ground is heard moving away from him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leliana Hathaway is sitting on top of a fast food restaurant, with her right, fingerless gloved hand is touching her head. Her eyes are white, with no other color to indicate her irises to even be present.

This woman is not the one that will arrive in few minutes along with her ancestor and her childhood friend. Instead she is an alternate counterpart of the other Leliana; the one that came with that childhood friend.

It may have been a confusing thing to have in this world of merged lives, so she always referred herself as Ellie.

_“Your name is too long. Can I just call you Ellie?”_

Oops, memories incoming. This always happen whenever she is accessing Line of the Universes; often time a memory will appear, obstructing the seers’ sights. The seers have to have a calm mind in order to fully accessing this.

Unfortunately the Lines of the Universes are jumbled up.

Usually one world will have a sideway tree-like structure, starting from one point, then split up into several routes, signifying the alternative choices humanity will make, or the ‘what if’.

But this ability is useless in this specific location.

For some unknown reason, she sees overlapping lines that crosses path with each other, with no apparent starting point. This should not be the case as each choice someone made will have different consequences afterward, no matter how small the detail is.

But looking at these lines, it is as if no matter what people did, something just had to stay the same. What does this mean?

Sighing, Ellie returns back to the current world, holding and rubbing her temple.

“Ah… how long have I been in there?” she suddenly mutters to herself, rubbing onto her stomach, “Might as well grab something to eat.”

Standing up, she stretches her arm and yawns before mumbling to herself once more, “Wow, did I even slept?”

She moves closer to the edge of the roof, but immediately stops moving when she looks down.

Her eyes are now looking at what appears to be a public display of affection at first, but with that kind of aura is not for that kind of relationship.

“Ah!” she notices something, “That’s Shraffe…”

He looks like he is in danger. His eyes are twitching while being closed and his limbs are petrified in place.

Clearly that’s not going to be a consensual hug, especially not from _that_ woman.

Ellie quickly jumps up toward her, charging up her feet and tries to smash that invasive life form of from him with a drop kick straight to her face.

The bad news is a steel claymore immediately appears near her face, shielding her from getting the treatment she needs.

The good news is the hug is no longer existed.

Nearing him, she taps onto the man’s shoulder, and he immediately opens up his eyes, noticing this green-haired lady.

“Le-Leliana?”

“It’s Ellie,” she gives him a smile that warms his heart and whisks his fear off from him; or at least this is what she wishes to achieve.

“E-Ellie?”

“You called me that, remember?”

She can see how little memory he has on that name, seeing how he looks confused.

Unlike her counterpart, she knows exactly what happened to him throughout his life of abusive relationship.

As to why she did not save him when she could? That’s a story for another day.

Back to the current situation, Ellie turns back toward the female who escaped the kick, who has been skidding off from him and is not taking this development well.

“YOU!!” Scarlet screams at her, “That hair… you are one of those wretched seers, aren’t you!? Didn’t I kill you all enough to send a message!?”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Message?

Shraffe moves his eyes back and forth between the two ladies; one is a monster that breaks his soul into pieces and the other is unknown savior he has met during his last days in his world.

Yes, there is no mistaking that this Leliana is the one that helped him reunited with his sister, not the one that has been with him the entire time he is in this world.

It’s clear that this one is having a short hair while the other one sports a short ponytail.

Also, the clothes… A robe and a jacket is not something people can confused together.

Back to the predicament at play, what message is she talking about? Have these two even met before?

Should he really be concerned about that right now?

Ellie pulls her fist back, seemingly ready for a brawl as she mutters toward the red-headed beast, “Unfortunately for you, names are the only connection we have of each other. Also, I made a promise to someone to keep him safe, and you are not that person.”

Scarlet’s keeps her grin at her. It feels very unnerving for someone who just got attacked to have that kind of expression.

“Sooner or later you will have to break that promise of yours. The end is near and there’s nothing for you to change that. The new world won’t be accepting your wishes at all.”

As she speaks those words, silver blades with red ornaments on the middle appears all around her, floating and spinning as if they are a shield of some sort.

While this scenery is making his skin shivering, he could not tell what this person in green robe feels.

Not once she ever shows fear. Is she not afraid of the red-headed mistress before her? Or creep out by her untamed grin?

It is as if she is prepared to face anything that comes toward her. Where did she get this strength?

He wants that.

He wants to be able to stare toward her without anything to be afraid of.

Why would he want that feeling? He has no answer for that. He just wishes to have that strength.

He can see how determined Ellie looks, with no sign of fear coming from her. She simply stands in a fighting stance, unmoved.

“I’m afraid I will have to disagree with you on that as well. Whatever you and your ‘friends’ are hoping to achieve, nobody will accept the eventual outcome. Even if it is not me, someone else will stop you.”

Ellie is suddenly envelops in a huge green aura, with her eyes shining red, “For now, I will be the one that stops you, your plan, and your sickening obsession toward him.”

The two ready to brawl, with the swords flying all over the place as the two ladies shift their stances.

Shraffe slowly backing away, but…

But his hands said no.

No… his bracelet… the one that is stuck around his wrist, currently transparent for none to see, is pulling him into the battlefield instead of away.

Wha… What is this bracelet, really?

“Shraffe!”

Leliana, Tamamo and Sakura run out of the eatery, clearly shock to see this event unfold.

The ponytail-haired lady first sees him on her way out, but then turns to see Ellie standing next to him, “Y-you!”

“Hey, there~,” Ellie winks at her with a smile on her face before glaring back at Scarlet.

Leliana moves and notices of Scarlet, and with that, drained all of her color, “Y-you are… you are the one who kidnapped him… You are the one who killed SHRAFFE!!”

K-killed!?

Shraffe stares at Leliana, startled with that statement. His skin feels the cold air even further than before and his hair stands up.

Is him… is him in the other world died? Is him from Leliana’s world no longer exists?

“I did?” Scarlet chuckles, unmoving by this news, “Can’t remember. I’ve travelled through so many worlds looking for my perfect lover. He may have been one of those I abandoned, who knows?”

“You disgust me…” Ellie mutters, “How many souls have you screwed over?”

The red-haired woman snickers, “Technically, I only ever offered my body to one person only…”

Her eyes are now staring straight toward Shraffe. Her tongue slightly licks her lips as she keeps staring at him.

Instinctively, he moves back away, as what he should be normally. But once again something inside his bracelet refuses to move.

The bracelet is burning. Is it angry? Why? How? Is this bracelet sentient?

Tears running down Leliana’s cheek as she moves forward, stepping even past the two before her, “You killed… you killed him… for what? How can you be so cruel to kill a young child? Why go so far if you are going to look for someone!?”

Scarlet shrugs, “It’s too long and complicated to explain.”

“But…” she now smiles at Leliana, “If you really wish to know why, I did not kill any of them. I simply push them to their limit and if they are not compatible with me, I let them go. If they wished to kill themselves after that, then it’s their problem.”

Scarlet then ends her words, “I see no reason to care for them. After all, they are just going to be another boring people living in the boring world, not doing anything. Might as well die if they can’t bring satisfaction to even one person on the bed.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Wha-…

Is that it?

IS THAT IT!?

Shraffe dies… because he can’t satisfy her dirty desire!?

Something breaks inside Leliana.

Her body quickly fills with green aura, bigger than Ellie’s, forming a shape of an animal; a fox with a pair of eagle wings.

The beast looks hungry, with its red eyes similar to the person it came from. Its fangs filled with saliva, as if it is hungry and ready to pounce onto its prey.

Scarlet jumps onto two of her blades, using it as a platform as she floats higher and higher, with more blades forming around her, “You want revenge? You can have it. Maybe that weakling version of your beloved can finally dies in peace. Of course, your revenge is nothing against mine, so I definitely can’t let you have yours before I have mine.”

As she ends her words, her blades start penetrating her bodies, with blood flows out, raining onto the ground.

Her eyes turning black, while her bloodied lips form a grin, **“Zero Change.”**

Scarlet’s body crumbles into dusts, while a new figure appears formed by the same dust below the sword; a figure in feminine silver armor with red lining all over her. Her chest and bird-like helmet is blood red, with black pair of eyes can be seen over the helmet.

**“ZERO CHANGE!!”**

Saberleaf jumps head first, leaving the green aura to dissipate as she smashes her clawed gauntlet straight toward this new figure, but one of the blades quickly flies between them, shielding her from the attack.

The figure, speaking with Scarlet’s voice, mutters, “Good… channel your anger toward me…”

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Shraffe stands there, unable to comprehend whatever is going on right now.

He is looking at Leliana, seemingly lost all reasons, with only beast-like roars coming from her, repeatedly pummeling the blades off from Scarlet, which is used by the woman as shields.

He sees how the fight drags on toward the roads nearby, with the ignorant citizens now noticed the two and start running away from the scene.

He sees Leliana keeps on pushing Scarlet off, even smashing some of the walls of buildings around with no care whoever she is hitting.

Sakura runs to join the fight, changing into her battle outfit while a huge tree appears out of the ground, with her using the tree to slide around the town to reach them.

Tamamo instead shifts into her fox form, moving slower than Sakura while following her back.

“She loses control of her power,” Ellie suddenly speaks up, pulling out a small green tablet, the same one Leliana used to change into her battle outfit, “As a seer, she was born with great amount of energy, and this is the result of losing control of that.”

Ellie then turns toward Shraffe, staring at him, “This rage of hers came from all of those frustration and despair building up inside her. You know why, right?”

“I…”

“You can tell why, right?” she pushes his body from behind, moving him forward, “Then what are you waiting for? She has been waiting for you for years now.”

Waiting… waiting for him?

Did she mean his other self? But he’s… gone… So…

_“I made a promise to someone to keep him safe.”_

Shraffe widen his eyes from the realization, quickly turning toward her before turning back toward the berserk fighter, “What is wrong with me… I’m so insensitive…”

**“Zero Change.”**

With his battle suit ready, he charges forward toward the fight, joining both fighters against the red-haired beast.

Ellie simply stares at him, with some sort of longing look on her, before turning her head away and rushes toward an opposite direction.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Hey, calm down!”

Sakura reaches the two via the three, and now jumps above them as she throws her chain to wrap Leliana’s arm around before trying to pull her away.

“LET GO OF ME!!” Leliana tries to pull her arm back, “I WON’T LET THIS CHANCE TO GET AWAY FROM ME!”

“My, my,” Scarlet scatters her shield-sword away, snickering toward the green-armored warrior, “You are quiet an avenger, aren’t you? You are willing to do anything just to kill me. You are not fit to be a seer at all.”

Sakura screams at her, “Leliana, stop it! Look all around you!”

Leliana turns her head around, wondering what her words alluding to.

Seeing the current state of the location around her startled her. She sees buildings being utterly damaged beyond any repair, either with holes or simply destroyed.

Scarlet chuckles at the sight of her reaction, “A seer’s job is to prevent disasters by preventing them with the knowledge of what’s to come; at least that’s what my mom used to tell me. What you are doing right now is the exact opposite of that.”

Leliana glares back toward her, continues try to pummel her with her clawed fists.

But the moment the hand touches her, Scarlet turns into broken dull blades falling onto the ground.

"Finally!"

Both ladies turn their heads around, looking at their enemy standing on a huge blade as she flies up in the sky, "I thought you are never going to stop hitting me."

She then raises her right hand up, with blades started flying above her, "You've had our fill of fun. This should be my turn now."

Swords start raining down all around them, as the two move toward different directions, separating themselves from each other while away from the barrage of attacks.

Wings sprouted behind her back as she starts flying high up, dodging the blades while trying toget close to her.

"Nu, uh!" Scarlet quickly grabs a red sword as it imbues itself into flame, "Not doing that trick again!"

With a slash toward her opponent, a crescent-shapd flame attack is sent toward her.

Leliana quickly tries to lower her self to evade the flame, but then a gust of wind hits her by surprise, courtesy of Scarlet with a grey-colored blade.

The red figure throws her blades off and jumps toward Leliana, pulling out a huge broadsword and starts smashing the blade right onto the green figure, throwing her crashing straight onto the ground, dissolving her battle armor.

"Leliana!"

The green-haired girl tries to push herself up upon hearing her name being called with Shraffe appears right beside her, helping her sitting up straight.

Scarlet lands onto the ground with a gold and red sword inside her hand, "Honey, get away from her. You don't want that sensual body of yours getting dirtied by her blood when I'm done with her. Even I am not turn on from that. I can tell from experience."

Her grin suddenly becomes wider as she gives off a creepy smile only a sociopath is capable of, "Of course, if you are into those kind of stuff, I can always provide you with such. I am flexible, you know?"

The silver and red figure slowly creeps forward closer to them, dragging her feet one by one.

**"KON!"**

Tamamo jumps out from behind her and shifts back into her human form and immediately changing into her armored form, landing with both legs on the ground with claws sprouting out from her nails.

"Get away from my masters!" the orange fox warrior jumps forward, slashing the opponent with her claws.

Rather than using the sword currently in hand, Scarlet pulls out a metal-colored sword from behind, used to deflects herself from the elongated nails.

Seeing a window of opportunity in a split second, Scarlet strikes Tamamo rapidly with her golden sword.

Tamamo is pushed aback a bit, looking unharmed.

"Tch!" the red-headed beast expresses her dissatisfaction, "Those strong nails of yours... and that speed... even in that form, it is quite unnatural for any of those two to be possible. Are you perhaps, knows some magic."

"Not some magic," the fox girl mutters, "I have a lot more than just that!"

Her right quickly draws a blue circle and a star in midair, with blue flame starts shooting forward, pushing Scarlet off.

"That magic!" the enemy screams in anger, "That's not possible! That is a magic lost in time, only known by Kagija's royalties and nobilities! My lovely, you got some allies there."

"Hey, eyes right here!" Tamamo runs forward, creating smaller magic circles that shoots out blue fireballs toward her.

Scarlet quickly jumps back onto her sword, dodging the flames that are unfortunately following her movement.

Tamamo draws the same circle with her feet, which generates enough wind to propel her up toward the sky.

With the two ladies getting busy with their match, Shraffe is still holding onto a weaken Leliana, who tries to stand by failed.

"I..." she whispers out loud, "Shraffe..."

"Leliana, calm down!" Shraffe tries to pull her up again, "We should get out from here."

His movement stops as he hears sobs coming from her direction.

"Shraffe died... because I failed to protect him... He died because I knew about it, yet I failed to do anything..."

"When did you knew?"

The green-haired girl pulls her head up, "What?"

"When did you knew I- Shraffe was going to get kidnapped?" the man beside him asks her, looking serious without staring back at her.

"Years before it happened..."

"Then you are still a child. You are months older than me, not years. I was kidnapped by more than just one person. Scarlet worked with others; picking random kids from all around the country just to deliver them to a cult. There is no way you could just saved me back then."

"But..."

He finally looks directly toward her, "I could not blame you for something you are not capable of. I also could not blame you for something we did to ourselves."

"What are you-"

"I know what he felt, and what driven him to suicide..."

"Su- How did you-!?" Leliana screams in shock, widening her eyes as an expression of disbelief.

"How could I not know that? I have the same exact thought back then. As I go through the torture they gave to me, all I could think is how merciful death would have been."

"When they finally put me under Cecilia's care as her personal slave, there are times where I wished I could reach out to a rope and make a noose out of it. But as a slave I was under a watchful eye."

"And when Cecilia ended up pregnant with my daughter, all of the sudden I could not longer kill myself. My thoughts from then on are all related to Aenori. There is no way I could just leave my world irresponsibly, not with my wife become the only caretaker for her."

"The difference between me and him, aside from him being alive, is that I was saved by my daughter."

He gives her a smile, "Though, the only other person I wished to meet is the person I am looking at right now."

Her face heats up. Her hairs stands up. Her skin reddens.

"So please... don't hurt yourself like this anymore. Not when you are not meeting my motivation to live just yet..."

Leliana quickly pushes his hand away from her, "Wh-what are you talking about!! We are in the middle of the fight!!"

Shraffe simply chuckles at her reaction.

His bracelet appears around his wrist, and the circle in the middle of it lights up with green light.

The first instinct comes into his mind is to touch the light. He could not think the risk of doing so, especially when he himself knows nothing about this bracelet, but something inside him tells him to just touch the light.

_ASSIMILATION, CONFIRM!_

"Wha-!" he quickly pulls his hand away in shock.

Inside the same slot, the light has disappears, instead having a small green marble in its place.

At that very moment, his focus on the marble quickly shifts to the front when he notices something falls onto the ground.

Above them, Scarlet is still standing on her blades, with several different blades circling above all of them.

"Quite a naughty person you have become~!" she snickers at him, "Travelling with three women at once; no matter which world you are from, you are almost always surrounded by bunch of them, huh?"

"That doesn't matter to me," she continues speaking while some of the blades engulf in flames, "I shall be the only person in your heart. The rest can just die."

The blades flies down, moving straight toward below her, where Tamamo is lying in pain, untransformed.

**"Zero Change!"**

_SOUL LINK: SABERLEAF; PHASE 1_

Golden shine lights up the whole place, nearly blinding them all; at the same time green light can also be seen among them. The blades are frozen in place.

Golden armor of Marzonn Zero flies out from the golden and green circle before them; attaching themselves onto his body, but now they are moving all around him, changing position and shapes, making him wearing a golden armor with some green pieces among them instead.

He even has green bird claws on hi gauntlet, and fox patten on his chest.

A green and golden helmet jumps out of the same golden, pushing itself around his head. The helmet has the appearance of a fox head-like shape, but still retain the look of a knight.

"This... looks like me..." Leliana mutters to herself upon seeing this.

Tamamo sees him and stare in awe, "Amazing..."

The reaction coming from Scarlet is the most unexpected.

She instead laughs, as if excited from seeing this as she screams at him, "Good! You have become stronger and stronger! More! More! More and you will be worthy to become my beloved husband!"

"Who wants to get married to you!?" Shraffe screams in a fit of rage, shocking even himself.

It is as if his mind was taken over by something... someone...

His claws turn bigger, with wings sprout out from his back. Shraffe then flies above and toward Scarlet.

She quickly throws the flaming blades at him, but he smacks them away, continues rushing toward her.

He goes for a slash, smashes some blades defending her into pieces, followed by another one that eventually reaches her stomach.

Scarlet is taken aback, strike her golden blade toward him but he grabs it and takes it from her, using it against her instead.

A huge golden and red wave appears out of the blade and hits her, throwing her off onto the ground.

Scarlet slowly stands up, mumbling to herself, "Traitorous sword... Are you really that happy to be with your master again?"

She climbs onto blades before her like moving on steps, and jumps straight toward him, grabbing the sword off from him.

Letting the sword disappears, she mutters, "I'll have to discipline you later."

She then pulls out a green sword, but before she is able to do anything, an image of fox crashes onto her, throwing her onto the ground once again.

Shraffe lands onto the ground, now charging up his fist in a green light, before throwing an image of a huge animal, roaring and rushing toward her.

This animal is a red fox with sharp fangs and huge white wings, or what Scarlet mutters as, "This is... Saberleaf... the gatekeeper of the void..."

The animal charges forward toward her with its mouth opens up, ready to eat her, but instead the image simply crashes onto her so hard, the armor breaks apart, revealing her human body inside.

Scarlet now seems tremble, whispering as she cries, "No... impossible... saberleaf... do not exist outside of the void..."

Her head pulls up, seeing Ellie finally joining them as she grabs a black sword and stabs her chest with it.

Shraffe and Leliana startle to see her action, but then the red-headed beast simply cumbles into dust.

Ellie mutters in annoyance, "Damn it! She's escaped again..."

Shraffe loses his armor, and now looking around before pulling up his bracelet, "What... what just happened?"

He then turns toward Ellie, "You gave this to me, right? Do you know what this bracelet really is?"

Ellie smiles at him for a moment before muttering, "You really have forgotten about this, huh?"

"What are you-"

"You created this bracelet. Not an alternate universe you, but it's you who created this bracelet."

"Wha-"

"It runs on relationship, as you claimed before you gave it to me for safekeeping. You told me to give it back to you if we ever meet again."

"I... I don't know what you are talking about..."

But before he gets the answer, they quickly found themselves surrounded by people in strange cyan coat.

Each of them are holding onto swords, all aiming at them as one of them screams at him, "Don't move! We are Shinsengumi, and you are under arrest for threatening the peace of Titanius!"

"Shi- what?" Tamamo looks confused, "Are they some kind of special samurai?"

Leliana screams in shock, "It's the Shinsengumi, a special police force working under the government of Japan during the Bakumatsu period! They are here too!?"

Ellie snickers, "This is the world where people from time and space being put in one location. You are also standing close to a famous youkai from the past. Meeting people like Shinsengumi should be the least shocking thing."

Shraffe looks around before wondering, "Wait, where's Sakura?"

Again, someone interrupt him before he gets an answer.

"Sh-Shraffe!?"

His head perks up, as he sees a strawberry blond-haired female among the police, jumping out of there as she looks really happy, "Shraffe, it's you!"

"Wait!" she suddenly puts her hand up, "What's your favorite ice-cream flavor?"

"Um.. yam?"

"It's really you!" the girl jumps toward him and hugs him tight.

Something inside Leliana and Ellie(?) tells them to punch her right there right now.

Shraffe quickly pushes her away, "Wha- did I know you?"

"It's me, Sona! Sona Okita! Did you forget me already?"

Forget... That word again...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Minutes ago]

Sakura runs into an alleyway as she dodges the blades from Scarlet, quickly making trees out of the ground around the entrance to shield herself against the enemy.

She quickly pulls out a medal a she mutters to herself, "Time for a counterattack..."

But the medals somehow slipped off from her and and dragged off by a black tentacle.

Sakura quickly turns back, now frozen in place. Her hands shaken vigorously.

"You... no way..."

Before her is a white-haired female, the same female that she met in her first world, smiling wide at her with black tentacles floating behind her.

"Mama, this is a very important event for papa. You shouldn't interfere with his growth."

Papa? Who is her 'papa'?

Sakura slowly turns around, peeking outside as she sees Shraffe running past the alleyway.

She quickly turns back toward the girl, who stands right front of her, "Why don't we play together instead? I missed you so much..."

Black tentacles jump out from the ground where she stands, grab hold of Sakura, dragging her into the black void along with the girl.

Sakura tries to escape, but the grip is too strong that she eventually disappears from the sight, leaving nothing in place.

 

**Chapter end.**

**Next: Following the fight at the border between Ruby Luxuria and Zed's Sanctuary, Zeroic Hero are in high alert as they dispatch their members toward all over the world. Ferhad is sent to a remnant of his world, and find a clue to the enemy's biggest secret.**


	10. O5 - Ninja Kage; The Ninja Enthusiast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An origin of a ninja wannabe in a world without choices

**Ninja Kage; The Ninja Enthusiast**

The sky is dark for this simple town, with almost no people roaming the street at this moment. Makes sense, as it is midnight.

But on the rooftop, blurry figures are seen moving across the town. Not long afterward, two figures stop on one of the roof, standing at the edge, peering at what seems to be a secretive meeting at a warehouse.

“Dude, are you sure we’re not being suspicious here?” a figure in sweater mumbles as he looks around the place, looking cautious with his environment, “It’s like in the movie, man. Meetings near warehouses are always looking suspicious to any passersby.”

A man in coat, among other men in suits before him snickers, “Us exchanging briefcases are a lot more suspicious.”

“Not really,” the man in sweater shakes his head, denying him, “We can pass it off as us doing business.”

“Just shut up and give me that damn briefcase!”

The man in sweater rolls his eyes and throws a silver briefcase toward him, receiving a different silver briefcase as a response from the man in coat.

He opens up the case, seeing stacks of money in it as he mutters, “Looks enough to me. What about you? Is it up to your satisfaction?”

The man in coat opens up the case in his hand, now seeing a black glove as he smiles, “Good, this is exactly what I am looking for.”

He pulls out the metal glove and starts inspecting every inches of that thing, “Titan Police Department’s Standard Sidearm, with no imprinting on its users, just like how I wanted it to be. You deserve applause for getting this thing right before the cops.”

“Hey,” the man in sweater mutters, “That’s no easy feat. I had to infiltrate the factory that made this, and that means I had to go through so many guards and their dogs just to steal one of them.”

He then stares at him, “You know, I had to ask this, but why only one? You could have asked me to steal tons of them at once. One Sidearm cannot do jack shit against the cops.”

“I know that,” the man in coat nods, “But, we have top notch scientists that are able to recreate the technology owned by Titanius. Once we have a grasp on their technology capabilities, we can make even better weapons to be used against the cops.”

“That’s quite ambitious,” the man in sweater nods, “Well, you better run. This glove is a state secret, so that means stealing one means capital offense. Right now they are probably onto you as we are speaking. Heck, some of them are already here.”

He points upward, with all eyes quickly look up, seeing two figures in black clothing, fully covering themselves standing just around the corner as they jump off from the roof, landing straight before them.

One of the people in suit screams in fear upon seeing them, “Shit, they sent assassins instead!?”

One of the assassins pull out a small sword before charging forward, slashing some of the people in suit before reaching the man in coat, going for a stab.

Another man in suit jumps in before him, grabbing the sword and kicks the assassin off from him, as he… she rolls on the ground before standing back up.

“Well, I’m out of here,” the man in sweater tries to step away from there, but he quickly notices caltrops laying around his feet, and looks up to see the other assassin standing near him.

“Seriously?” the man in sweater questions him, “What are you, a ninja?”

The assassin did not answer him, as he simply puts up hand signs before tapping his palm onto the ground.

Up on the sky, a net flies downward onto him, trapping the man in sweater.

The man snickers, taking out two daggers before screaming, “Like hell I will get myself captured!”

He struck his daggers toward the net, quickly cutting them off upon impact as he jumps high away from the caltrops.

The assassin is about to chase after him, but he is hit in the back by his rolling friend.

He pulls his head up, and now the man in sweater is no longer there.

His friend stands up, tapping onto his shoulder as he nods, with the two assassins now stand up side by side, holding onto their swords.

The man in coat screams out toward the man in suit before him, “Defend me, and I’ll pay you one-year worth of bonus!”

He then runs away and entering a car, before moving away from the warehouse in a hurry.

One of the assassins puts his hand onto his ear, “Target has escaped. Required assistance from the local police.”

_“Request accepted. Backups are on their way.”_

The male assassin turns back toward the man in suit, who tears off his own suit, revealing his six-packed body toward the two.

He then puts on a red belt around his waist and flicks a switch on it. Black and red bodysuit appears enveloping his body as he now stands in a fighting stance.

The female assassin whispers at him, “It’s the X4X Mercenary.”

The male assassin nods, “Then, we are authorized to use our equipment.”

The two pulls out a rectangular object out of their pockets, putting them at the front of their waists with silver straps wrapping them around.

**“Ninpou: Henkei no Jutsu!”**

Together, both of them insert kunai into a slot on the belt, with smoke appears out of the belt, filling up the area before solidifies into their own bodysuits.

The female one wears a white ninja-themed costume with pink lines around her, while the male one wears similar costume but grey with yellow lines instead. Both of their helmets are simply a head with small black slit as a visor.

The female one steps forward, putting up hand signs as she screams, **“Light Jutsu: Light Bending!”**

All lights suddenly disappear from all sight, with only clanging steels are heard before the light is back for all to see.

The male assassin is already standing close to the brawler, with his blade close to the man’s shoulder, though it seems the blade could not penetrate the man’s arm.

“What’s the matter, ninja? Is your blade a dull one?”

The male assassin jumps high, with the female one charges forward, throwing stars toward him, distracting him.

While on the air, the male assassin puts up hand signs with his bodysuit turns red as he screams, **“Flame Jutsu: Hot Rain Entrapment!”**

Rain-like flames appear on top of them, phasing through the two assassins but instead burning the brawler. The rain drops connect onto each other, forming a net that traps the man, pinning him down onto the ground.

The two soon hears blaring sirens moving past them, with cars zooming past them as the two simply watch them moving away.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The male assassin, now wearing his stealth outfit back, climbs into a room through his window, as he quickly lands his rear onto the nearest couch.

He takes off his mask, revealing his face to be a man with black spiky hair, with a scar across his eyes. He even takes off his shirt, letting his abs exposed to the element.

Sweats running down off on his body as he slowly breathes out, slowly absorbed into his couch.

Three knocks are heard on the wood, with his eyes turn toward the door, and slowly reaches out toward the door, slowly opens it up.

An aqua-haired female in the same stealth outfit peeks into the room, staring at him, “Sleeping already?”

“Today is a tiring day. I need a rest.”

“What you need to do is to report yourself to the council.”

“Can’t you do that for me?” he seems to be begging for her to do so.

The female shakes her head, “Sorry, but the council will definitely takes this chance to expel you off from the team.”

Giving a long sigh, the man grabs his shirt and walks out of the door, “It’s night, yet it burns.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The two walk through the corridor, which is located inside hive-shaped buildings, built on a body of water, floating on the sea without being affected by the current of water.

They reach the middle of the buildings, a huge hexagon-shaped building as they knock onto the door.

The door opens up by itself, with the two enters the pitch black room.

The room then lights up, with three figures sitting before them on really high chairs, with the two are forced to look up just to see their looming silhouettes.

The blue-haired female quickly salutes the three, “Saint Mizuki Hamdan, Saint Ferhad Junid; reporting in!”

A voice is heard coming from one of the three, “Lieutenants, have you completed your mission? Have you captured the culprit that has been stealing our technologies?”

Mizuki mutters, “Forgive us, but we have failed to capture the culprit. We were attacked by an X4X mercenary as soon as we’ve arrived into the scene.”

Ferhad steps forward, “It is all my fault, sir. I was given the opportunity to capture the culprit, but I tried to help Saint Mizuki in defeating the mercenary instead.”

A different voice is heard from the three, “I understand your situation. X4X is a group of deserters; traitors of Titanius and thus any involvement they have in anything are to be prioritized. We clearly do not regard the possibility that this culprit to even be working with X4X. Fine, we shall let you go with a warning.”

A third voice, a feminine one is heard from the three silhouettes, “In the meantime, do rest yourself till the next mission. You are now dismissed.”

The two walk out of the room, with Mizuki leans her back onto the wall, mumbling, “I thought we are going to be punished for sure. This is the third time we’ve failed to capture that culprit.”

She continues to complain, “Who is that guy, anyway? We’ve run through several different databases, looking for any of his possible identities, but we could not come with even one of them.”

“Perhaps his identity is not in the database?” Ferhad suggests, but she quickly shots him down.

“Impossible! Everybody is required to register themselves right after being born. This is how we are able to identify the wrongdoers or the victims this whole time. Are you saying that someone just so happen to not register when he was little and grows up to be a criminal?”

“I’m just saying that face could be changed.”

“But DNA cannot! We have his DNA, and yet we could not identify him! It is as if he is not exist to begin with!”

Mizuki walks away from there, muttering, “I’m going to the lab now.”

Ferhad shrugs, “I’ll be outside.”

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Welcome!"

Ferhad walks into an establishment called Deli-Ramen, a place that seems to be an eatery serving ramen.

The greets came from a blue-haired female wearing her waitress uniform, as she speaks to him cheerfully, "Did you just returned home from work?"

He simply nods with a smile on his face, before speaking up to her, "Is there-"

"Nobody's sitting at your favorite place," the girl smugly mutters, "I have been making sure that nobody is sitting in that place except you!"

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Nope! There is no rule that says the owner cannot reserve a seat for an honorable patron!"

An older woman within similar uniform walks past them while leaving some words, "Kasumi always waits for you to come to this place almost every day."

The girl blushes like a tomato as she quickly turns around, screaming at the old lady, "Mom, you are embarassing me!!"

Ferhad chuckles at the sight before finally bows at her, "Well then, I would like to have the usual."

Kasumi nods as she turns toward the counter where the kitchen is at, "Dad, one Big Bowl Special Ramen!!"

The man walks close to a chair and a table located at the edge near the wall, where the sun can be seen outside of the window.

As he sits on the chair, his eyes turn to stare at the sun, which fills the whole sky as if the planet is covered with a layer of sun, which it is actually is.

His eyes then move, glaring at a nearby television, which shows breaking news.

_"The rebellion has continues their assaults on the Saints headquarters early this morning. While the evacuation has been completed, the war continues with the casualties are expected to continue rising."_

"Don't you wish you could join the frontline in their war against the rebel? Just wish the HQ could call us out as well," Mizuki joins him, sitting opposite to him as she continues, "What's the point of getting the title of Saint if you do not join a really important fight like this one?"

Ferhad glares at her, "That's just an opinion. You just want to kill your uncle, right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Mizuku speaks out loud, "Not only is he outright rejecting the title of 'Saint', something everyone really wants to have, but he declared himself as the enemy of all mankind from the beginning. Who does that!? I regret my entire lives calling him my uncle!"

"Yet you still call him that," Ferhad mutters, trying to look away from her, "You don't really need to. He is pretty much the same age as you are. You two aren't even related by blood."

He stops, seeing Mizuki simply staring deep toward him while he is served a really big bowl of noodles.

"Here you are!" Kasumi speaks cheerfully before noticing Mizuki, "What about your girlfriend?

Ferhad quickly motions his fingers, telling her to get away as the waitress slowly back away from the two.

He turns his attention back toward the woman before, seeing how despair she seems to look like.

It must have been because of what happened a year before.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_[ONE YEAR AGO]_

_It is mandatory for each of the 17 year-old students to be evaluated based on their skills._

_Saints Foundation is a govenrment-funded militaristic company and every year they will be looking for young bloods that will be promoted to the rank of Saints. This title is considered elite and being announced as one will elevate you into a higher social status._

_Every year they will conduct evaluation on which of the millions of registered teenagers to be given those titles as their own honors._

_As stated, Saints are considered the nobles of this world, and anybody can become nobles, living in mansions prepared for them with so many people worshipping you from that day onward._

_Who doesn't want that?_

_Their tests are based on several different categories; there are athletism, special abilites, knowledges and any other skills._

_But a month before that, these candidates are transported to where the test will be held and they will be given a chance to study, practice and training themselves on any categories they wish to tackle on, depending on a type of Saints they wish to become; battle-oriented, service-oriented and even administration-oriented._

_Ferhad just finished running around the field, which is also one of the tests and is now sweating heavily before falling onto a bench._

_"Man, I hate this."_

_His eyes look around, seeing a young man sitting beside him as Ferhad pulls himself up, looking at him, "What is it that you hate?"_

_"All of this, really. Why are we wasting our time doing all of this when we can just grown up normally?"_

_Ferhad scoffs at him, "Dude, being a Saint is everyone's number one dream."_

_"Not me. I don't want to be a Saint."_

_"You had to be an oddball one, huh?"_

_Ferhad pushes his body around, now sitting on the bench, "If you become a Saint, you are basically the leader of all humanity. If you have skills for that, it isn't hurt to have people respect you from the get-go."_

_"And people wipe your ass?" the man snickers at his words._

_"Dude, that is mean."_

_"But that's exactly what happened here. This is basically a fucked up way for people to find their designated nobilities and start worshipping them without any question."_

_"Nobilities?" Ferhad looks confused, as if he has no idea what the word means._

_The man shakes his head before continuing, "Back in the old, old civilization, there is basically a different kind of hierarchy where a bunch of families get to be bunch of entitled assholes just because they have something some people don't. From the moment their babies are born, their lives matter more than the farmers who clearly make them their foods. Basically, Saints."_

_"Dude, we are not born to be Saints. We prove ourselves to be better to be called that."_

_The man glares at him, "Really? Are you expecting me to say that just anybody can dive underwater and not breathing for minutes without drowning themselves?"_

_He points out toward a swimming pool before them, as the sight of some of the divers swim onto the surface, almost drowning before being saved by some people around the place._

_"We are 17 years old. You don't expect us to hone our skills from childhood, do you? We are kids; we spent the bulk of our time playing around."_

_"Not to mention some people, like the kids of previous Saints, have their own personal tutors for certain tests. Some others instead had to do the learning all by themselves."_

_The young man continues with his rant, "Being a Saint is awesome and all, but if there is literally no class to prepare for this kind of exam, how do you think people are going to improve their lives?"_

_Ferhad tries to counter this point, "But, with passion and preserverance, one can surely raise their status by hardwork."_

_"Yeah, right," the man stares toward him with a grin on his face, "Tell me, aren't you aiming to be a battle-oriented Saint, more specifically, ninja-related Saint?"_

_"I do," Ferhad nods at him._

_The man keeps questioning him, "Then what is your preparation leading to this test?"_

_"I trained myself on various ninjutsu, from the old, powerless abilities of the ancient ninja to the flashiest techniques I could ever learn of."_

_"How are you going to learn all that?"_

_"From a teacher, of course. I cannot possibily learn how to control my inner power and mold them into varieties of elements if nobody is guiding me."_

_The man points toward some students who are practicing their shuriken throwing skills on their targets._

_"What do you think when you look at them?"_

_Ferhad stares at them for a moment, before answering with, "They are clearly amateurs. The way they are throwing those stars are already wrong. If they wish to pass the preliminary test, they could have learned how to throw stars. It's like they don't have a teacher or something."_

_"Do you think they are going to pass the test?"_

_"Of course not! Saints are the leaders of humanity! Even our king is a Saint of himself. There is no way those wannabes with their crude way of shuriken technique can reach any position of Saints."_

_"See what I mean?" the man shrugs, "They don't have teachers, but unlike you who has been resting for minutes and can only train for minutes, they have to learn stuff by themselves without anybody telling them how. Even with such a huge stamina difference between them and you, the judges won't see their "hardwork" and "perseverance" as a plus point. To be a Saint, you need a perfect score."_

_"Owh..." Ferhad feels guilty from that statement, now looking down, ashamed._

_"You can't argue about hardwork if you have something they could not afford to have. It is quite unfair and hypocrite at the same time."_

_"I... see your point..."_

_"UNCLE!" a female voice is heard screaming at the two's ears, startling the man as he pushes him off from the bench._

_"Mizuki, I don't have a power to reinforce my ear drum!"_

_Behind the two is Mizuki, who is glaring at the young man as she furiosuly screams at him, "If you have time looking down at other people and complaining about your life, maybe it is better if you start training how to fight or you don't get to become ANY of the battle Saints. You know battle Saints are the best kind of Saints!"_

_The man shrugs, "No can do! I would rather not fight. I'm a pacifist."_

_He stops when he notices Mizuki no longer looks angry at him, now having a saddened face instead, "Uncle... I'm going to become a Saint no matter what, but I want at least for you to be around me. A Saint and a normal people cannot live together under the same roof."_

_"Well, you can always rely on your boyfriend for anything," he taps on Ferhad's shoulder before walking away from there._

_Mizuki is back to being pissed before throwing a can drink onto him, "Uncle, you idiot!"_

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ferhad chuckles as he slurps some of his noodle before speaking, "He is quite an oddball, isn't he?"

Mizuki sighs upon hearing him, "And now he is leading a group of oddballs, wanting to overthrow the government. To think I lost my virginity to someone like him."

That last statement nearly chokes him to the death, "Wh-what did you just said!?"

"What?" Mizuki glares at him as if his reaction was uncalled for, as if he did something very wrong and she did not approved what he did strongly.

Ferhad, on the other hand, is understandably confused with her nonchalantly reaction, "You slept with your uncle!?"

"Yeah, any problem with that?"

"Tons of it, in fact! First off, it's called incest!"

Mizuki sighs, mumbling, "He's not even my real uncle. His dad happens to be a pervert that marries even my grandmother as long as she's hot."

"Wait, really?" worries no longer pops up on his face.

She shrugs, "Not the last part, but he really is not my biological uncle. I did grew up seeing him as one."

"And you had sex with him??"

Mizuki does not seems to like his reaction, "What's wrong with that? I fall for him, so I did it with him. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?"

Ferhad tries to scream and protest her thought process, but he ran out of words to convey that.

Most that he could thought of, instead of informing her how bad incest is, may come across as him slut-shaming her.

Then again, incest is just one of things that seem wrong but still have many people doing them, similar to adultery, bribery and so on.

Why would this become a case? If something is deemed wrong, why would you still doing it?

What did he called this again; degradation?

Xxxxxxxx

_Don't you guys see? Not too long ago everything we are practicing right now are the exact thing that people from 3 generations ago called as depraved!" Mizuki's uncle stands before the crowd in the hall._

_It was a coronation day for the newly selected Saints a.k.a. the very moment everyone has been waiting for._

_Yet for the first time in history, someone does not wish to become one._

_The man continues speaking via a microphone he has stolen from the MC of that event, "Not too long ago people are looking at these as something that should be avoided, yet as of now we are proud to embrace our own depravity even though we see them as wrong. How did all of these started?"_

_"I shall tell you how. Before, in a civilisation where the sun did not envelop our own blue planet, where the sun is a giant ball of flame located far, far away from our eyes, where the day is white and the night is dark, a group of people have decided to take that life away from us."_

_"They decided to control our lives by first destroying the old sun, and when humanity are in despair within the darkness, they created a new sun for us, appearing as a god before us."_

_"They are given power in exchange, and start their own depravity. We tried to rebel, but they reward us with more depravity."_

_"These Saint system is one of them. Us so called elites are selected to be their toys. We were given powers, wealth and fame, in exchange of our freedom to choose. The Saints are basically the title of our job; occupations that are previously free to be chosen by us, now locked onto us before we even graduated from our school."_

_"Not only that, but as these elites, we will be told of how we should lived our lives; where do we live, who are we married to, how many kids can we have."_

_"I will not be accepting my title as the Saint of War, and if any of you future generation of humanity, and feel the same as I do, then none of you will accept this life they force you to have and create your own path."_

Xxxxxxxx

"That day was the worst in Saints' history. Half of the future Saints followed his footsteps and walk away from there."

Ferhad turns toward the TV, "Now they become terrorists. What a great way to say no to a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Why can't they just say no and walk away is a mystery."

"Yeah," Mizuki sighs, "I want to know why to. But I guess a mystery will remains a mystery."

Ferhad glares at her, "What are you talking about? You can ask him once he is captured and imprisoned."

"That's impossible. He is a kill-on-sight target."

This surprises him a bit, "Really? When did that ever happened?"

"Right after he walk away from the ceremony."

Ferhad stands in shock, "RIGHT AFTER THAT!? Are you sure it's not after their terrorism act??"

Mizuki shakes her head, "I've read the letter the HQ sent to him before. They are pretty much declaring him as a national threat."

"For rejecting the Saint's position?"

"I don't know the detail, but that seems deserving of public execution."

That makes no sense for him. Why would they eliminate him for saying no? Or is it because of his conspiracy theory-like speech? That still doesn't deserve to be murdered.

It is as if there is no choice in the first place. You either get selected as one or live the rest of your life in the slums. You either become one of them or be hunted forever.

Is there really no choice there? Did they really have to have their lives being dictated by others then?

Nah, that's ridiculous. He was just exaggerating things. No way their lives would be that bad.

Mizuki's voice is heard calling him as she is holding onto her form, "We got a mission. Let's go."

"Already!?" Ferhad stares at her in shock, whining like a little child, "But I didn't even halfway into this bowl!"

"Pack it however you want, a mission is a mission."

"But you cannot pack a ramen!"

Xxxxxxxx

Both ninja are now walking through the corridor, with Ferhad holds onto a plastic filled with brown liquid, which he is seen sipping with a straw.

The two eventually reaches the same door they went into before.

Before them, a blue-haired man in black leather outfit is seen standing before the door, looking toward the metal gateway.

He turns around, smiling as he speaks out loud, "Yo, Ferhad! I see you are drinking ramen's broth again. My, you never changed."

"Your friend?" Mizuki turns toward the man beside her.

"Owh, just a friend I made back before the Saint's test," he responds to her before turning toward the man, "Ken Ishihara, Saint of Spear."

"The one and only," he exclaims with a smug grin on his face, "What about this girl; your girlfriend?"

Ferhad startles a bit before quickly answering him, "No, she's my partner; Mizuki Hamdan, Saint of Ninjutsu."

"Wait, SHE is the Saint of Ninjutsu? What about you?"

"I'm the Saint of Shinobi."

"What's the difference?"

"She's better at throwing over the top flashy attacks, while I'm more of the old, ancient technique type."

"Can we keep the reunion later?" Mizuki mutters with an annoyed tone, "The councilmen are not the type that waits."

The two men simply shrug her off before both push the huge door together as the three enter the dark room together.

Xxxxxxxx

A group of dark-clothing people move through a forest as they slowly reach a huge oriental castle in the middle of the jungle.

Ferhad is among the group, as he moves close to a tree before wearing a brass knuckle with claws sticking on his palm.

He sticks the claws into the tree bark, moving upward as he climbs the tree with only his hands.

Finally reaching on top of the tree, he pulls out a binocular, stalking the castle from afar.

Mizuki joins him via a gust of wind while Ken climbs the tree the normal way.

"Dude, why aren't you using that wind thing like your girlfriend over there."

"I prefer the ancient way."

Ferhad continues checking the castle out before muttering, "I still don't get why we have to deployed every single ninja working under us."

Mizuki mutters, "The councilmen has already told us before. The man we have been looking for is currently located in that building, along with an army of X4X terrorists, acting as reinforcement for those that fought at the HQ. We are needed to not only capture our target, eliminate as many terrorists as we can."

"But this is still too overkill. A handful of trained assassins can pretty much eliminate the whole camp of enemies. The rest can stay and be deployed to the battle against the X4X at the HQ. Heck, they can try to assassinate your un-" Ferhad quickly stops speaking when he realizes his words may cross the line.

His revelation happens when he notices Mizuki pained look on her face, and tries to take back what he was about to sprout, "Is that why... you bring the whole battalion here?"

"No," she shakes her head, "The councilmen called me through my phone before we moved out. But we might as well bring them along."

Ferhad looks away, unable to say any further.

Ken stares at them while muttering out loud, "Even if we hold titles equal to nobles, we lose our freedom and are forced to listen to orders for the rest of our lives. He may have been right this whole time."

Mizuki hears this as she takes a deep breath, "It doesn't matter right now. Orders or not, this man has been providing contraband for just about anybody, regardless of social status. He must be stopped no matter what."

She then turns around, glaring at all of them, "Listen up, this is how we are going to work. Half of you will be with me and Ken; we will storm the building as a distraction. The rest of you go with Ferhad and sneak to find that man within that building."

Xxxxxxxx

On every corner of that castle, guards wearing green military outfits have been placed all around them, now patrolling the place slowly.

**"Wind Technique: Giant Hurricane Falcon!"**

Jumping out from one of the trees before the castle, Mizuki envelops herself in a gigantic bird-shaped wind that is then thrown forward toward the gate and tears it apart, leaving a huge hole leading into the building.

More ninja jump out of the trees, holding weapons and charging into the building.

"We are under attack!"

"Everyone, to the front gate!"

Chaos ensues, as the enemies now focusing their might onto their opposition.

Ken leads the group, rushing onto the incoming enemy and throws the spear he holds in his hand straight to one of the enemies at the front. Somehow a row of them get hit and their bodies get thrown aback, as Ken approaches the soldiers behind the dead ones, impaling some with his spear after it returned to him.

Xxxxxxxx

Ferhad and a handful of them jump over the wall and into the courtyard as he sees people running toward the front gate.

He simply shakes his head, remarking inside his mind of how irresponsible they are to leave their post just to join the war at the front.

Well, he do loves an easy job, and sneaks his way into the castle.

Rooms later, Ferhad finally reaches the man he is looking for, and without any hesitation throws his knife straight onto the man's legs.

The man startles and falls onto the floor, as he turns around and see him, "Not you again!?"

"I am ending this cat and mouse game," Ferhad pulls out a short sword called tanto, slowly moving toward him.

"You want to kill me that badly?" the man doesn't seem to fear that possibility, "Go on, do it! I've done what I need to do. The world is going to be destroyed anyway."

"Destroyed?" his words piqued the assassin's interest.

The man continues, "Yeah, those foolish Saints and the equally pathetic X4X mercenaries would not know what's coming for them."

Ferhad glares at him, "What an asshole, saying something like that to those people you paid to protect your sorry ass."

"Paid them? I think you got it all wrong. Those people outside here are the government's deserters. They only used an imitation of techs used by the X4X. They have nothing to do with the terrorist group. We only took him in because they looked really sad when they learned what the Saints did to them."

"We? Who is this 'we'?" Ferhad demands an answer from the man.

The man simply smiles, as a red spear moves past him, separating his head from his body. The head now struck onto the wall.

The spear flies back behind Ferhad, with the assassin turns around, "Ken, what the hell are yo-?"

His words stunted from his mouth, with a feeling of horror surrounding his being.

Before him stands a familiar figure, brandishing his spear while in the midst of corpses of the fellow assassins, all slashed and bled to death.

"Ken?" the sole ninja wonders of what he sees before him.

Ken seems to be looking busy cleaning his spear as he turns toward him, "Ow, hey there. Sorry, I was just keeping my weapon clear off your subordinates' blood."

"What are you-"

"What are you, a dunce? What I meant to say is that I killed your subordinates, idiot."

"But why?" Ferhad seems to be in denial still.

"Because I'm a traitor, you stupid!" Ken screams at him, stressed out by his denial, "I killed your people and you can still ask why? How naive can you be? Or are you hoping for a silver lining? A reason to sympathise with me?"

Ken starts twirling his spear in circle once, before holding and aiming them forward as he charged toward the remaining ninja, "Good luck trying to figure that out 'cause I'm not telling you!"

The ninja pulls out a sickle with chains and wrap the tip of the spear with the chains, trying to halt his movement, but the attack is fast enough to push both of them out from the building.

Finding themselves at the courtyard, all eyes are staring at both of them, startled and confused by their appearance.

Mizuki wonders, questioning one of them, "Hey, Ferhad, what's going on-"

The question is incomplete, as the speaker is no longer breathing the moment a spear struck into her heart.

Somehow, Ken is fast enough nobody sees him moving from the front of the building toward his target.

He pulls the spear off from her, with blood pouring out from her as she falls onto the ground.

Her last moment could have been a startling moment, unanswered for her based on her shocked face.

Ken sees the middle lifeless body of the maiden and slowly turns toward him, grinning while holding onto his spear.

"Pray that you have a place in the new world."

Ferhad could no longer see anything. The pain he feels afterward has overtaken every senses of his body. With that, his next course of action is to automatically sleep it off.

Who knows how long he sleeps there. The sun is not something that could be used to measure time, contrary to what old people used to say.

Perhaps they were referring to the time where the sun is a ball of light and Earth is a ball of nature and water spinning around it?

Man, he wishes he could live in that time. At least he could perfect the ancient ninja arts he learned from books.

Moments spent by Ferhad thinking how cool it is to learn about the ninja of the old.

He somehow remembers how he spent his childhood days reading and admiring them, and even arguing about what a ninja is with Mizuki.

_"What kind of books are you reading, Ferhad? Those stuff looks boring and complicated. I want to be like those ninja in the TV. They can breathe fire and shoot water."_

_"Mizuki, that sounds like a magician more than a ninja."_

_"What are you talking about? Magicians are the one that pulled coins out of ears!"_

Mizuki?

Ferhad finally pulls his head up, with his hands waving all around the back of his body before pulling out rods from his body.

Slowly, he pushes himself up, noticing his limbs are all covered with stinky red paint.

"Mizuki?" Ferhad keeps calling the owner of the name, hoping for her to answer him back.

Unfortunately the hope might as well be a small one, seeing himself woken up in the middle of bodies ravaged by spears.

Ferhad finally sees her, the only one without any rods sticking out.

He could only stare, while not realizing how the sun around them starts explode and move closer to him, burning what soul remains.

Xxxxxxxx

"Hey."

"HEY!"

Ferhad opens up his eyes, jumping on the place as he is startled while waking up from his sleep.

"I... Where..."

His sight turns toward the sky above him; a blue sky instead of filled with a sea of flame.

"This is... like... the ancient time..."

"Ancient?" a female voice interrupts his thought, "What kind of world were you living in?"

He turns his head around, finally realizing of the girl standing behind him.

"Mizuki?"

"Not the one you know of," she shakes her head before extending her hand with a smile, "Welcome to the Land of the Dead, where all dead souls are given a second chance; well, 1.5 chance if I'd say so myself."

Second chance? Yeah, he'll take that chance.

He accepts her hand, shaking it, "Ferhad Junid, a ninja enthusiast."

"Ninja? That`s the first I've ever seen or heard. Well, I'm a mage, if you don't mind."

Huh, what an irony?


	11. O6 - Scillyia; A Betrayed Foreigner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin of a messed up wife

**SCILLYIA; A BETRAYED FOREIGNER**

"Suzuki Hirai?"

"Here, teacher!"

"Minori Yamamoto?"

"Here~!"

"Se- Se- Sesiria Kurea?"

"Just call her 'gaijin-san', teacher!"

The class filled with high school students bursts into laughter, all thanks to her own name being misread.

This was the everyday life of Cecilia Éclair, and it is embarrassing.

Xxxxxxx

Born out of French couple, she quickly finds herself hating her life.

"Is that karaage inside her bento? Will she even eat that?"

No, she loves karaage. It's her favorite food.

"Why didn't she just eat hamburger like all foreigners do? That`s her version of our Japanese rice after all."

Just because she was born with blonde hair doesn't mean all that she ever eat is a bunch of meat put together between buns.

"Maybe she wishes to imitate us, Japanese?"

She was born in Japan; she is technically Japanese.

"Why don't you tell her to stop, then?"

"Hey, I don't speak English."

They don't need to. She speaks Japanese. English is her third language. Her second is French, which may as well be the third at this rate.

School days come and go as usual as it is boring. She was treated differently simply because she wasn't born with raven hair and dark brown eyes. Not only that, nobody even tries to speak to her and they already judged her language and social skill.

Pretty sure this is not a life of a typical middle school student, but she can't complain much. As long as she didn't feel threatened with this kind of atmosphere, she can keep on living as if nothing happened.

After all, her school life is far better than the life at home.

Cecilia returns home and what she sees is something normal for her and abnormal for everyone else.

Her home isn't among the residential area, it's in the forest.

IN the forest.

As she simply stares toward the hill side that is where her birth place is located, she ponders for seconds before turning her back and walk away from there.

Cecilia has decided that returns home makes no difference to her. Her parents won't be there for her and there's nothing for her to do.

She could, however, spends some time at the playground. Even for a thirteen year-old girl, she finds a swing to be fun.

"Mizuki, aren't you a bit too old to play at the playground?"

That`s unusual.

Cecilia turns her head to see a group made up of two girls and one boy hanging out at the same playground, as both girls are playing the monkey bars.

It is strange for her to see such scenery at this kind of place.

The frequent visitors are either her or younger children. Even then, at this age, in the land of media developers, kids just spent some time playing video games or watching cartoons instead.

These newcomers, they look more of her age if anything.

What's even odd is that the conversation between them happens entirely in English.

Hearing that language in the land of the rising sun is as common as seeing a famous singer walking on the street.

The blue-haired girl among them speaks up in a cheerful manner, "Uncle, I'm 11! Let me spend some time here before I moved!"

The other girl nods, staring at the only male of their group, "Yeah, abang! There is nothing wrong with 11 years old children to play slides and bars!"

The male simply stare at them before moving close to Cecilia, sitting on the swing beside her.

Cecilia stares at him, while the boy keeps his sight fixed at the girls.

It doesn't take long till he noticed of her green eyes, "S-sorry, is there something?"

The blonde-haired girl quickly looks away, before staring back at him as she tries speaking in her third known language, "I have never seen someone like you before."

"I'm here visiting my niece," he mutters, trying not to look at her, "Her family's going to move out of here and stay with us next week."

Moving out of here? That`s probably a good idea. While seemingly peaceful, this place has nothing but-

"Hey, is it true that there is a cult around here?" one of the girls; the black-haired one suddenly asked the other girl.

"Yeah, but mom said not to talk about it out loud, or they will take you away."

"That's scary!" the black-haired mutters, almost as if she is about to cry, "Why do you lived in a place like this?"

"Hey," the older male tries to interrupt their conversation, "How about we go have ice creams instead? It's hot today."

"Okay!" the two girls become excited from hearing the word "ice cream" and quickly run out of the playground.

The boy follows them from behind, after waving hand toward Cecilia as a sign of goodbye.

The blonde girl flinched at his gesture, locking confused as she stares at him slowly disappearing from her sight.

This is the first time in her life to receive even a simple acknowledgment of her existence.

First... time?

She should...

Who...

Xxxxxxxx

The day turn into night as normal as other days gone by, and as usual she spent her time at her usual hanging spot.

Though, today she has this strange urge to run away from that town. Her heart beats faster than usual as if she was anticipating something unusual.

But she is not mature enough to know how to live in the outside world, so being a runaway as of now is definitely a bad idea.

Slowly, she enters her wooden home located in the midst of the wood, and walks into the living room.

At the corner of the room is a cabinet with variety of statues inside; originated from various histories and myths.

She is always crept out with those statues. She can feels them staring at her whenever she is inside the room.

Her parents do not correct them as hobbies or works, but for something entirely different.

"O Children of the Star, bless us with your grace."

Cecilia peeks out and stares toward a door at the end of the corner, hearing murmurs of words sometime unknown for her to decipher.

But it is easy enough to say that both of them are obsessed with religions to the point of being a pair of cultists.

No, they are indeed cultists.

She has heard stories from them when she was younger of how the two are constantly looking for a guide in life.

Both born from the families of atheists, which soon turn into agnostics when they started to believe the concept of creationism.

The two later met in life, which somehow fuel their need for something to worship.

However, they are also a bunch of people with excuses. Some religions with activities like prayers were rejected by them because they are lazy to do any of them.

It's easy to say that they have commitment issues.

Their next journey brought them to ancient religions, like the Greeks, Norse or as old as Sumerian myth.

One time they pray hard for the goddess Ishtar to bless them with babies.

Needless to say they forgo the essentials of baby-making and leave it to Ishtar to solve the problem.

This is how she is here.

Found in this same forest, baby Cecilia was later adopted into the family of Éclair, and for some reason, become the very excuse for them to start worshipping aliens.

Aliens, of all things!

If it is some sort of ancient deities, she can get past that. But worshipping something that is foreign and not part of the same planet in the first place is just... stranger than strange.

Thanks to the commitment issues they have, she has been hearing different made up names allegedly owned by aliens from planets with made up names, jumping from one name to another, even having nonsensical "prayers" if you could even call it that.

Cecilia shudders when the memories of those times her parents forced her to participate in cutting the trees just to make crop circles, which is undeniably pointless since nobody realized the forest even have something like that.

She shakes the thought off from her head, throwing them all out mentally and walks toward where her room is located.

"You are home, Cecilia?"

The girl turns her head around, quickly noticing a group of people alongside her parents, staring at her without even blinking.

Have they... have they made an actual cult now??

Her mother creepily smiles at her as she always did, "I'm sorry if we were too loud. We have guests; similar people who also worship the brilliance that is the Star Child."

That was an actual thing??

Cecilia quickly speaks up to her, "I'll be inside my room. Call me when you done."

She quickly runs away from there, steps into her room as fast as she could.

Locking the door, she quickly jumps into her mattress on the floor and sleep.

Dinner? That`s not the first time she didn't get to eat.

It's not worth it when her home is filled with a creepy community right now.

Those stares... they are unsettling.

Xxxxxxxx

"O Children of the Star, grant us children for your worshippers. Grant us lives from the blood of one of you, O Children of the Star."

Ouch...

Her head feels heavy, as if her head was smashed with a brick.

No, the more appropriate analogy is that something as hard as a brick magically passed through her skull and smashed her right on her brain.

On the other hand, her skin feels a bit too chilly, and pain at the same time.

Cecilia quickly pushes herself up, now seeing how she is not inside her room, but instead somewhere strange.

She was lying on an altar, inside a small room filled with candles around her and squiggly lines all across the room.

Cecilia also notices that she isn't wearing anything at all, and the only thing that covers her body is a bed sheet that has the size of a bath towel.

The pain comes back to her, and it is clear to her that her lower area is where the painful sensation comes from.

Before her, the door creeks open, revealing someone peering into the room.

"Mom!" she calls out to this newcomer, "Where am I? What is this place? What... happened to me?"

She has no need to ask the third question. She knew what the answer is. She was just in denial.

She wishes it never happened to her, and yet it did.

Liquid of water runs on her skin from where her balls of sight reside is the proof of that knowledge.

Instead of answering her, the woman she called 'mother' turns around and ignores her, instead speaking toward someone else, "Sir, the Star Child has woken up."

With that, a man wearing a gaudy and glittery silver, black and green jacket enters the room, flipping his immovable orange hair as he approaches her.

"Milady Éclair, how's the sleep go? Did you have any pleasant dream?"

Cecilia is clearly crept out by his presence, "Wh-who are you? Where am I? What... What have you done to me?"

"Me? I am simply a devoted worshipper of yours, my Star Child. The name is Kazuya Éclair, and your parents are my most favorite subordinates."

"Subordinates?"

The man seems to be ignoring her and continues speaking at his own pace, "As the heir of the yakuza clan, Éclair, it is my duty to bring my people to the highest level."

"I shall adopt you into the proper Éclair family and you shall be the heiress of my position."

"With Star Child leading us all, not even the Kreetors can oppose us."

All of that nonsense by this weirdo is incomprehensible for her ears. Those statements have no meaning for her.

However she fully understands what the next sentences meant.

"In order to achieve that glory. We shall first train you to become both a leader and a lady, and find you a husband."

"And so, we have prepared your body for the selection process."

Her right eye twitches from the word "prepared".

It feels like she knows what that word is referring to.

"Wh-why me? Why are you calling me with that weird title? Why... why are you doing this to me?"

"Because you are our Star Child. Your awakening is our salvation."

He then bows at her before speaking, "Now, we shall gather candidates for your husband and their training wheels."

He grins as he glares at her before closing, and from the sound of it, locking the door.

Cecilia sits there on the table with only a sheet and half of her dignity left, not realizing how the changes in her life is far bigger than she thought.

Xxxxxxxx

How long has she been living in that room?

Who knows? It's not like she could count the times the sun sets and rises. She couldn't even see the sun to do just that.

She has never been going out of this place ever since she was brought there. The outside world almost sounds like a legend to her.

Her clothes can also be considered an urban legend.

Before she could at least cover herself with a blanket, but with all the daily activities she currently has it feels a lot better with only her hair covering herself.

"The next one will be here soon. He will be the last one for today," her mo- that wretched woman shows her face before her, delivering her news as monotonous as humanly possible.

There is no indication of remorse shown on her face; as if she barely cares for this young lady she used to call her mother.

This is not unusual sight for Cecilia.

Since she was a little young girl she has never seen a smile on the woman's face. She always sees this as her temporary zealotry taken her energy out but now that she thinks about it...

Cecilia simply nods at her, as the door closes and locked loudly on the outside.

Last one for today?

Just how many more young boys need to brought in before they are finally satisfied?

Unlike her mother, who has somehow acting nonchalant around her, her father will at least makes an effort of staying connected to her.

From what he has told her throughout her containment, their newest and latest belief somehow brings them to a number of people that sees herself as a goddess in a disguise.

They are planning to use her to lead them through a "salvation" by first giving her a family and later power.

These cultists... They are truly out of their mind...

Their first step is to find her, whom they believe as their own goddess or Star Child of Love, a husband.

Their solution for that is to find people within her range of ages and let them have massive orgies every day, till they find someone they see as suitable to be brought into her room for the next selection process.

Those kids they brought in... None of them are volunteers...

They were kidnapped from all corners of the world, smuggled into this place and are forced at gunpoint to perform perverted acts in favor of those cultists, and when they failed to reach their expectations, they are murdered.

Cecilia has no idea if that is even true or not, but her father seems very excited when talking about this subject; the same excitement shown whenever he talks about other stuff within similar topic of discussion so she had no reason to distrust him.

But that only mean that her existence alone causes at least tens of teenagers being raped by proxy and killed.

That pressure alone breaks her; if not for all the time she was held down by the cultists just for the chosen boys that passed the first round to do it with her.

Their excuse is to gauge his "ability", but she knows all too well that this is just an excuse for them to watch free child pornography, not when some of them join in as well.

At some point in time she just gave up fighting entirely. There is no way she could escaped them and the only hope she has is for them to finally pick the one they are looking for, if they even intend to find one in the first place...

Xxxxxxxx

Cecilia sits in a different room; a much bigger room with a lot more things all over the place.

She herself is no longer in her birthday suit. The girl is now wearing layers of kimono with her long hair tied up with a hair clip of colorful flowers.

The blonde-haired lady stares at the mirror, muttering something to herself, "Who are you?"

From being captured in an isolated location in the middle of nowhere, becoming a plaything for crazies to a bride to be wedded of and possibly becoming a plaything for a different crazy.

And this all happened in a span of a year.

_Cecilia breathes heavily, with a tired expression seen on her face. Her body temperature is high and sweats flowing on her skin._

_Ever since arriving in this room, the only time she has ever felt this tired is the first few times she was forced to participate in this perversion._

_Meanwhile, the boy between her legs sits there, with lighter breathes coming from him. The boy seems to have no life in his eyes, but this is something that is shared by all young visitors of this cursed room._

_What's different right now is how he is still sitting there, unmoved when all of those before him at this point, due to then fainted, being dragged away and put off for good._

_Suddenly, the silent room is suddenly being filled with claps that soon turn into applause._

_Soon, more and more adults entering the room, scaring both kids as they jump away from them, holding onto each other as close as their brains could process._

_"Congratulations, Star Child of Love," Kazuya walks out among those people, "You have successfully found yourself your very own groom. Days from now, we shall welcome you into our family with a huge marriage festival, and thus, your new life begins."_

_"O Children of the Star, may you bless us with your brilliance."_

_The words first wished by him, are repeated by others around him, as if it is a prayer for this strange religion they are worshipping._

A man suddenly calls the attention of Kazuya, "Since we have finally found our groom, what should we do to those other kids out there? Should we kill them all?"

It is scary to think that the first thing in their mind when talking about those lives he has broken down is to put them down.

How can someone be so willing to hurt other people?

However, that would've been merciful compared to what Kazuya decided to say, "The girls can still be useful, especially when they are older. The boys... if no one is claiming them, death is the only option."

Smiles grow on the zealots faces, with them turning around and walk out of the room. Minutes later, screams and cries drown the whole place before the volume slows down.

"Am I intruding?"

Cecilia returns back to the present, with her eyes quickly take notes of Kazuya standing at the door.

"Shouldn't you be happy?" he asks her a different question, "Not only were you able to get married to someone that will make you happy, at the age of 13, no less, but you will also become rich beyond your imagination, something no girl your age could get no matter how hard you try."

"The Éclair family is not just a family of rich people, we own a conglomerate in textile industry with branches in different countries. With profits of billions of money of any kind, we are basically ruling this world."

Cecilia ignores his rambling after the word 'family', continues staring toward the mirror as she wishes for him to stop mumbling and get out of there so she could have her free time.

She knows how much this time is important for her, and how much she is going to miss all of those times she was all by herself.

As she regains her attention toward the man, the man seems to have notice her lack of attentiveness and questions her, "Is there something in your mind?"

"Why me?" she stares toward him, "I'm just a daughter of your subordinates. You could have gotten your own heir, so why me?"

The man grins, "Because, Cecilia Éclair, you are a Star Child. As your trusted devotee, it is my duty to spread the teachings of Children of the Star."

"It's that thing again!" The girl snaps, "Why do you keep calling me that? I am not some phony god of a made up religion! I'm just a girl born from two people who cannot stick to one god for a month before converting to a new one."

Kazuya shakes his head, "Owh, but that is simply not true. Those two are relying on deities so much; they couldn't be bothered to make their own child the easy way. How do you think you exist in the first place?"

Wha- what? No... No...

"The truth is, you are no one's kid. They simply found you in the forest and took you in. The question, however, is what are you?"

No...

"Of course, you are nothing more than-"

Xxxxxxxx

Shock. Despair. Disappointment. Anger. Hatred. **Hatred.** **HATRED!!**

These are the feelings that she remembers feeling before she loses herself.

After that she could barely remembers what happened.

What she could remember is standing before a terrified young boy and petrified.

Upon seeing her husband-to-be's face, a piece of memory instantly plays within her mind. She remembers the family she has met not too long ago, at the park near her hometown; the first person she has ever spoken to...

Tears running down on her cheeks as she falls onto his lap, muttering to him, "I'm sorry... I'm really sorry..."

The boy holds onto her tight, not letting her go. He shakes his head as he replies with, "It's not your fault."

Cecilia then looks around, noticing how the two are the only living beings and with all limbs still attached.

The hall is now red, with puddles of blood all over the place. Hands and legs are not at the places they are supposed to be at.

The cultists of the Star Child are no longer around.

Cecilia stares at the bodies of what could possibly be her parents, and somehow a smirk can be seen on her face.

She loses her smile as she turns toward the boy, "I'm Cecilia."

"I... my name is Shraffe."

She smiles once again, this time with no malicious intention with it.

Cecilia Éclair has found a new meaning in her life.

Just like today, only both of them could live happily...

With that, the tyranny of Éclair clan begins.

Xxxxxxxx

It has been 10 years since the bloody wedding, and Cecilia still has no recollection of what has happened.

It doesn't matter to her anyway all she knows is that people died and Kazuya has gone missing, so everything the leader has is now owned by her, as per will.

It is also should be noted that Kazuya isn't the true heir beforehand, not even an Éclair, but he has forcefully enters into the Éclair household and murders everyone before leaving the rest. Not only that, he somehow manages to brainwash the surviving subordinates and staffs of the Éclair conglomerate into converting to the religion of Children of Star.

Moving all assets of Éclair into oversea, he also has successfully turn what should have been a simply millionaire family into yakuza-styled organization, something that has been noted by the media across the world.

And this happened while she was captured, not before, so everything he has said is a lie, but why?

It doesn't matter to her, as Cecilia is more focused on other things in her life.

The expensive car that Cecilia is inside as of now is driven by the driver into the front yard of a huge mansion.

Her new home, located somewhere in Tokyo, is guarded by various people in black suit and sunglasses, armed with guns around their waists. It is a far better place than the trash that is her old home in the middle of the forest.

Cecilia, within her crimson dress climbs out of the car and walks into the home, straight into the living room.

Her eyes turn to look at the TV, where a pair of older man and young girl is playing a video game before the huge screen. Laughters are heard as both seemingly enjoying their characters being beaten by the enemies.

The Éclair heiress could not help but smile as she watches the two.

The older male turns to see her and quickly stands up, greeting her with a smile, "H-how's the party, ma- Cecilia?"

She smiles even wider, "Not at all. I don't see any reason to be part of something that I have nothing to do with in the first place. All of those people who came are all pretentious people sucking up to me either as their goddess or as their boss or both. Either way is possible."

"Surely there's something-"

"Food is shit. Nothing can be compared with yours. Only you can make an honest food taste incredible. That or I've become more and more infatuated with your cooking."

The young girl happily interjects herself into the conversation, "That's right, mommy! Papa's cooking the best! All my friends wished papa is their own."

"That's impossible," Cecilia chuckles at her words, "I will never share papa with anyone. Your friends can keep on dreaming."

The girl simply giggles at her. It does not seem that she understood anything she just said.

The man looks around muttering, "Aenori, it's time to go to bed."

The girl nods and runs out of there, climbing onto the steps and disappears from the living room.

The atmosphere suddenly becomes tense as Cecilia puts her rear onto the couch nearby, sighing, "I hate those assholes! Who the fuck they think they are, asking for my blessing or anything like that!? Have they forgotten what's real and what's not!? They even dare asking for a lot of things when they already have a life of their own!"

"Asking me this and that... I am not a miracle worker, damn it!"

Her husband slowly sits beside her, muttering, "Maybe they just wished for your en-"

"Encouragement, my ass!" Cecilia screams even more, "If you can't do anything in the first place, how much words can do to improve that!? They might as well just die and have their balls castrated!"

"Ma'am," he speaks to her with a lower tone, "You can't do that. Your company is losing more and more skillful workers because you insist on tearing their scrotum every time. The ex-workers are scared of you."

She nods, agreed, "Yeah, you're right. I should have just let you raped their wives and daughters and stop at that."

"Not that too!" he screams out, with his eyes started dilated and shaking before he calms down, lowering his head, "Please..."

Cecilia chuckles when she sees his state before, "Shraffe, you are pathetic. That is the only time I let you have sex with any other women and you are saying no? All pigs out there willingly to even lick my boots to have such opportunity. Of course, asking that to me will pretty much have their balls and their arousal nerve system removed."

The woman turns her sight around, glaring at the nearby guard and screams at him, "Hey, how's your erection!? Can you even masturbate?"

"Ma'am..." Shraffe weakly calls out to her, "I... I don't want to do that anymore..."

Cecilia turns back toward her, losing her smile as she sighs, "Fine. I promised I'll stop. I'll only limit that to any women that tried to seduce you."

Shraffe flinches at that, but no voice coming out from him.

This made her smile as she mutters, "How about this; Next week we'll be going out for a vacation?"

"Vacation?" he pulls his head up, looking shocked, "Me too?"

She nods happily, "Yeah, you have been a good husband for the whole month. I should reward you. How about France? Paris sounds good. I always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower."

Shraffe forms a smile on his face, "Yeah... Aenori said the same too."

"Yeah... and her too..." Cecilia looks away, disappointed before turning back to him, "You've never gone out before, right?"

He nods, staring away from her eyes.

Cecilia sighs, "Last time thanks to that policewoman... what's her name again? Rina? Yeah, I think that's her name... She almost tried to take you away from here. Man, she's an oddball one. What kind of person fallen for their rapist?"

"Please... no more..."

Cecilia chuckles, "Okay, I won't talk about that anymore."

She moves closer to him, as she grabs his arm. She then puts her head onto his shoulder, using him as a pillow, "This world has no need for others, but you and me. We should be the only occupant in here..."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Wakey, wakey, sweetie..."

Cecilia opens up her eyes, now seeing herself in a strange place.

Why her vision is green? Why are there bubbles all around her?

Her eyes then turn to see what is before her.

This place feels like a movie set, the fantasy one. All she sees are unknown contraptions looking like computers and lights coming from strange hole all over the place.

She then notices something around her; wires connected to something below her and onto her... naked body...

N...n...naked... naked... na... n...n...

She starts breathing heavily and her heart rate rises before something on her mouth area slowly calming her down.

Is that a breathing mask on her face?

"My god, look at all of those scars. What have they done to you? Humans sure are wild..."

Her eyes widen, seeing a creature with scales on its body, bright yellow eyes and a snout with fangs as teeth walking from behind, showing itself before her.

Wh-what is that!?

"Don't worry, sweetie," the creature speaks up to her, "I am not here to hurt you. In fact, I am healing you right now."

Healing her? What happened to her? Where is she right now?

The creature stands before another contraption between them before looking at her one more, "You look confused. Do you not remember what happened?"

"Honey, your vehicle got crashed and into a dimensional portal. You are back into our planet."

Crashed? Yeah, she remembers that now. Her family and her are in a flight to Paris when there is an engine failure.

Dimensional portal? Planet? Back?

The creature sounds like it is sighing, "Quite a miracle, I'm telling you. We just happened to be testing our portals and now you are back with us."

Back? This thing speaks to her as if she knows them.

"Ah," the creature mutters before walking back and forth, "I know that look. You have no idea what I was talking about, right?"

The creature walks toward her back, before returning back with a book, "Galaxy Calendar 4530; that was the date when you were sent to Earth as part of the Dimension King's order."

The creature then looks at her before wondering, "Y-you don't know about your origin? Fine, I guess I'll humor you."

The creature flips through pages with its claws before stopping, "As part of the king's plan of total invasion, he picked several newborns from the Iridian race and send them toward several planets across the universe. For a bonus, he sent some into the portals as part of the experiments."

"Owh, I think in Earth Iridian is known as Elder Gods? That's what that guy... Lovecraft wrote? Funny how he was involved with a portal accident for a split second and already though that he saw a god. Humans are so crazy. I have no idea why the Dimension King favors Earth so much."

Why is that thing talking about aliens all of the sudden?

"Here is a funny thing, sweetie, Iridian is simply a race of wild creatures some of us considered as pets. If I am not mistaken, Earthlings called them 'dogs'..."

The creature chuckles for a moment, "Funny how unintelligent creature like yourself can develop speech pattern of other species simply by growing up as them. Your shape-shifting ability should not encompass that kind of ability. Hm... I may need to research this more..."

That thing then walks around before grabbing onto something and pulls it, "Now that you've recovered, I shall send you back to where you were belonged to. Don't worry, Iridian can also teleport. You only need to think hard to where you wish to be at and you will go straight toward that place. Now go and make us proud."

The creature then pulls onto the lever, shooting her out of the tube in seconds.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Cecilia has no idea where she is now, or how did she ended up in this huge room. Her mind is still stuck on the previous revelation, on what she really is.

No way... that's just a lie... a dream... yes... a dream...

Her life experience... all the stress she had must have caught up to her...

Of course... that's just how it is... She was just having a day dream. She is still in the airplane, waiting for long hours of journey to France.

This is just a dream... a pinch will help her wake-

"Freeze!"

Before her own eyes, she sees men in armored uniforms standing around, aiming guns toward her.

A frail-looking old man in a lab coat walks out of the crowd, moving slowly as he approaches her, "Another intruder? My, my, this place must be really interesting for anybody to even be inside here."

The old man turns his back toward her, "However, I do not have any interest on you. Unless you have any discerning properties like that man and his daughter, I do not need any more subjects."

A man? A daughter?

Shraffe?

"Kill her," the old man orders the men, with all of them obeys, now holding onto their rifles tighter.

"Fire!" one of them screams, raining bullets toward her, not stopping even for a second and letting her react to this situation.

Cecilia could only watch as hot leads penetrate her body one by one, few seconds between one bullet to another with her couldn't even fall onto the ground.

No... That’s not it...

She did not fall because the bullets are too fast. She did not fall because her body did not register this as pain.

But Cecilia did not know that. Her mind could only think about her husband and his wellbeing.

What about him? Is it really him the old man was talking about? Is he fine?

But then she notices the holes on her body, and the abundance of blood.

"What... is..."

_"Of course, you are nothing more than an alien. An alien dog, to be precise."_

Her mind flashes back to what Kazuya had told her during her wedding.

_"You are not human, so why bother living like one? Treating you like one will be wasting everyone's time. Parents? If you really want to play make believe, sure. But the truth is you were found in a forest inside a pod and your stupid parents decided that you are a deity sent from heaven. The same forest you were living before. Funny, right?"_

_Kazuya then throws pictures before her, showing her something looking like a huge silver and blue metal American football. Some photos even showing her parents holding onto a baby wrapped inside a towel._

_"The ship even gave us your true name. You want to know? It's Scillyia. That's where the name 'Cecilia' came from, fun fact."_

Her heartbeat pumps faster and faster. The memories flooding into her brain.

She finally remembers something at the wedding. It was her...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHH!!!!!!"

Her body slowly shifts, turning into a flesh-looking wolf-like creature that falls onto four legs. This creature has no eyes but it is not blind. Her scream turns into howling. Tentacles with bladed edges jump out of her back.

"Interesting specimen," the old man grins, but then one the tentacles quickly penetrates his throat.

He struggles to breathe as he is thrown away from there toward a door nearby.

The soldiers start panicking, now pulling triggers toward her.

It is futile however as just like before, the bullets simply move through her, now without leaving any holes.

Cecilia howls once more, now rushing toward one of them and goes for a bite, quickly taking off the man's head along with his spine out of his body.

"Monster!" the soldiers are panicking even more, as they keep on trying to shoot her.

But the wolf runs all over the place, dodging the bullets with an unimaginable speed and stops, shooting her tentacles, stabbing some of them right at their eyes, chests and throats.

One guard left standing, looking around in horror as he seems to be pulling something out of his front belt, switching the medal he used with a different one.

_WEAPON: KATANA!_

The rifle he was holding onto is now replaced with a katana.

The last soldier twirls the sword around before holding onto it in a stance, "Come and get me, you beast!"

Responding to the call, Cecilia runs forward as the man tries to attack her with a left swipe, but she simply dodges it and throws one of her tentacles onto him.

He quickly deflects the stab with his own blade.

The creature notices this, and starts spamming her tentacles toward him, in which he spins the sword around while slowly moving away from her.

Cecilia growls in anger, now rushing forward toward him.

"My blade is faster than your speed!" he screams, dodging and striking her.

This time the strike hits her, as she felt the pain.

Cecilia sees the blood out from her left cheek, now roaring in anger.

She then jumps high, reaching onto an equivalent of the second floor before jumping once more, reaching what could have been the fifth floor of the building. While that, she throws her tentacles, trying to attack him but his blade keeps spinning every time the blades try to reach him.

Cecilia manages to reach what may have been the eighth floor as she uses her rear legs to kick herself forward, downward back to the ground. This time her left front leg cocks backward.

The man prepares to slash downward toward her direction.

The wolf throws a punch that breaks the katana, surprising him, "Wh- the blade..."

Before he could finish his words, the beast smashes her claws into his chest, ripping his body into half and throws him to the sky. Her tentacles cut him into pieces and falls onto the floor.

She roars once more in anger.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Cecilia, back into her human self, slowly moving forward. She looks distraught, and needs the walls for the cling onto.

Is she really an alien? IS this really not a dream?

Shraffe... he would not leave her out of fear, right?

Cecilia slowly cries, hoping that he would not even walk away from her, wishing that he will always be with her...

She doesn't want to be abandoned again, not with another person she truly loves...

She keeps on thinking how much he will try and escape from her, and this in turn making her crying even more.

The woman now looks forward, hearing noises, and now her eyes widen.

Far from her, she sees a female in green robe, holding onto a child as she hands the girl toward... Shraffe...

She is smiling at him...

Smiling...

Shraffe is... giving her something... A present? A gift? An affair?

The unknown female runs away from there, with Shraffe stares at her before falling down, fainted. The girl simply lands on his body.

Wha-

"Shraffe!"

Cecilia runs forward, reaching him and pushes the child off from him.

She touches his chest, as she mutters, "Don't... don't you ever leave me..."

The three disappears.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Wh-where are we?"

Shraffe seems confused, looking around as he sees Cecilia lying beside him.

She just stares at him before moving forward, kissing him on his cheek, "Good morning. Did you not remember anything?"

"Anything?"

"When we were inside the flight..."

Her husband is trying to figure it out, but he quickly shakes his head, "My mind feels a bit fuzzy. What happened?"

She smiles wide, "You took one of our men's drinks by mistake, and got knocked out from alcohol. We had to carry you from the airport to the hotel."

"Thanks... ma'am..." he looks down.

She moves closer to him, whispering to him, "You will stay by my side forever, right?"

He turns around, turning toward the sleeping Aenori beside him and back to her, "Yes."

Cecilia smiles before turning her back toward him. She then shows an angry face, mumbling, "Her again..."

"It's all because of her..."

Yes, he only sticks around because of their daughter...

Their daughter...

One day she needs to die, only then they can be together.

 


End file.
